Rebel Cowboy (5 page)

There hadn’t been home-cooked meals and tables set. More like a sandwich and a piece of fruit from Mom when she was on the go, and being taken out to restaurants when he’d been with Dad.

“So, um, this is a nice place.” Dan had never considered himself bad at small talk. But he was quickly realizing he’d never sat around in silence, because people usually wanted to talk to him, ask him questions. He’d never been counted on to be the conversation starter.

“I’m sure you’re used to a lot nicer.”

“Well, my grandparents’ place isn’t exactly the Ritz.”

“The old Paulle place, right?”

“Yeah, you know it?”

Caleb shrugged, glancing back at the kitchen. “Back in high school, no one was living out there. It was put to use, you could say.”

“Know anything about a llama?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. So, teenagers were out there making out a decade ago?”

“Among other things.” Out of nowhere, Caleb seemed incredibly stiff and uncomfortable. “Hey, you want a beer?”

“Sure.”

“Be back.” Caleb disappeared and suddenly Dan was standing in the middle of a decent-sized dining room alone. The furniture was nice. Old, sure, but the kind that looked like family heirlooms.

He didn’t belong here. The intensity of that feeling struck him hard, a panic that squeezed at his lungs. This was all old and real and it belonged. It had grown from this earth and been here for centuries, and who the hell was he?

Taking on his grandparents’ ranch had been more of a whim, an escape, and it hadn’t come with a heavy sense of responsibility. After all, his grandparents weren’t likely to ever make it back to Montana, and what little memories Dan had of the place weren’t those of lifelong love and devotion. Mom had certainly never been eager to make the trek up here. She’d escaped the minute she’d been old enough.

But the Shaw house? It screamed all those things, and for some reasons he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—define, it scared the bejesus out of him.

He had to get out of here.

He ditched the set table and the old furniture and the discomfort banding around his lungs, and headed for the kitchen, for Mel. She gave him a lot of conflicting feelings, but at least the verbal sparring with her didn’t induce panic.

Her forehead was scrunched up in concentration, eyes on the cookbook while she twisted a can opener around a can of vegetables.

“Do they not have electric can openers in Montana?”

She jumped, some of the liquid from the can sloshing over her fingers. She swore and then plopped the lump of vegetables into a pot on the stovetop. “Where’d Caleb go?”

“Beer.”

She pursed her lips and stared hard at the cookbook. “Everything should be ready in about ten minutes.”

“Domesticity. It’s a good look for you.”

“F—”

“You don’t have to say it.” He held up his hands, pretended not to be highly amused. “That look tells me everything I need to know.”

“I hate you.”

He put his elbows on the counter, resting his chin in his hands as he grinned at her. “You don’t hate me. I don’t doubt you
want
to hate me, but you don’t.”

She let out a gusty sigh. “Why, oh why did I think it was a good idea to bring you here?”

“Handsome. Charming. Excellent company.”

“Pathetic. Lonely. Friendless.” She stirred the vegetables in the pot absently. “Apparently my pity kicked in for a few seconds there. Very rare. That’s how pitiful you are, Dan.”

He shrugged. “Got you cooking me dinner. I’ll take it.”

Caleb reappeared. “Ready yet? I’m starving. Frozen pizza leftovers are shit for lunch.”

“Sandwich, Caleb. Two pieces of bread. Ham. Maybe a little mustard. Voilà.”

“I—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

Mel stiffened. Dan didn’t have much experience reading family dynamics. He didn’t have siblings. He barely remembered a time his parents had been in the same room, let alone discussed each other. The divorce and his subsequent…issues had ended all that. So, he understood people in isolation, when he put his mind to it, but the weird sibling thing here was beyond his scope.

He could only guess there was some history there. Some not exactly nice history.

Mel bent over, pulled something out of the oven. Which gave Dan a rather up close view of her ass. At least, until Caleb cleared his throat.

When Dan looked his way, there was a threatening look on Caleb’s face.

Yeah, Dan really, really should not have come here.

“It’s not gourmet, but you’ll both pretend like it’s the best damn thing you’ve ever eaten.” Oblivious to Dan and Caleb’s nonverbal exchange, Mel continued handing out orders. “Caleb, grab the green beans.” She plopped the casserole dish—a sad version of possibly pork chops—into some kind of holder thing and marched to the dining room.

Caleb got the green beans, and Dan followed him. At least until Caleb stopped.

“I may be the younger brother, and you may be famous, but don’t think I won’t kick your ass to next Friday if you do one thing to hurt her.”

Before Dan could formulate a response to
that
, Caleb was walking into the dining room…and asking Mel something about cow testicles?

Dan glanced longingly at the door, but he’d been foolish enough to let Mel drive him over here. He was stuck. Stuck in crazy Shaw-ville. Population two, apparently.

He hoped he’d have a chance to escape.

He settled down in a chair next to Mel. The wood was uncomfortable, heavy and encompassing. Reiterating that feeling of being trapped.

Well, Dan had learned his first important Montana lesson today. Never, under any circumstances, let loneliness lead you to accepting a pretty woman’s dinner invitation. Unless there was guarantee of a whole lot more than food, and a whole lot less family.

An older man wheeled into the dining room. It had to be Mel and Caleb’s father, and yet they looked surprised to see him.

“Noisy,” he muttered. Then his eyes rested on Dan. “Who the hell are you?”

“Um. Dan. Dan Sharpe?”

The man grunted, then turned his wheelchair around and disappeared. When Dan looked back at the table, Caleb and Mel had their eyes on their plates. After a few seconds, Caleb pushed back. “I need another beer. Anybody else?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

Mel shook her head.

Then they were alone in her dining room, the silence heavy and uncomfortable. Dan had no words to interrupt it, no way of diffusing the tension in that silence. Caleb reappeared with a beer, sat down with a heavy sigh, and then they all ate. Not saying anything.

Dan wished he’d stayed home. Alone. Far away from complicated families.

“You ready to go?”

Dan nodded, looking more than ready. Why hadn’t she thought to have him drive his damn self?

Because she hadn’t been thinking. Not even for a second. He’d looked lonely and lost, and she’d been an idiot.

Dan had a way of tugging on that little softhearted underbelly she tried to ignore at all costs.

Damn, damn, damn.
She needed to nip that in the bud quick.

She stepped onto the porch and paused, taking a deep breath of the summer evening. The sun had set, but the sky was still light to the west. Not for long. Stars already twinkled in the east. It was enough to settle some of the pain stirring around in her gut.

Until Dan stepped out behind her.

She should move for the truck. Get away from him as fast as possible. But she needed this view. For a couple more seconds. To feel okay again. Strong again. Like she could handle…everything.

“So, what happened to your dad?”

She should have known it’d never be that easy. “Horse spooked and threw him. He’s pretty much paralyzed from the waist down.” She ran her hands over the smooth wood of the railing. “Happened a few years ago. Can’t say any of us are used to it.”

“That’s tough.”

Tough. Yes. But it wasn’t a tragedy. Just halfway there, or something. “You know, it’s not so bad.” She kept thinking if she said it often enough, out loud, to Caleb, to whomever, someday it would start being true.
Not so bad
. “We thought he was going to die. So, we’re lucky really. It knocked Caleb out of his rebellious stage.” But Caleb had already had a third beer to his lips when she’d asked Dan if he was ready to go. Rebellious stages weren’t so easy to break. Not when they were rooted in a pain he refused to share with anyone else. A pain she’d never been able to reach or understand.

And if Caleb went back to the way he’d been…

He’d promised he wouldn’t. She had to believe in that promise, even if she’d long ago learned promises were bullshit in the face of reality. “It could all be a lot worse,” she forced herself to say. Because she wasn’t breaking down in front of Dan. She wasn’t breaking down, period.

“It could be a lot better though.”

Her throat closed up, but she wouldn’t let her emotions have that kind of power over her. So, she went with the truth. “Yeah, it could.”

“Things seem bad.”

“Not bad, though we’re kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Medical bills, part-time nurse, making the house accessible, on top of ranch stuff. But we’ll get through. That’s why I had to…”

“That’s why you had to take the job with me even though you’d rather be here fixing this.”

She shrugged. It felt weird having him know that, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad weird. Just odd. “Anyway, it won’t affect how much time and effort I put into you. Don’t worry about that.”

“Trust me, I’m not worried about that.” He was silent for a few seconds, his hands only a few inches from hers on the railing.

For the briefest of moments she wished he’d put his hand over hers. Offer some physical comfort. Because that would be pretty nice right about now. Someone offering something simple. To care, or at least pretend to.

That told her everything she needed to know about her current mind-set.

“I…if you need money…”

The offer snapped away the self-pity, the fear, because
fuck
his pity. She was doing this. It was hard as hell, but she was doing it. “How long have you known me, Dan?”

“Uh, two days.”

“You don’t offer money to someone you’ve known for two days. I don’t care how much you have.” She made a move for the truck, but his hand rested on her elbow.

He didn’t grab or hold her there, but the touch was enough to make her freeze. To try to hold in everything
touch
might elicit. Sparks. Attraction. Want.

Fear.

This wasn’t the comfortable touch she’d yearned for a few minutes ago—this was something bigger. And she wanted nothing to do with it. She had more than enough on her plate.

“Let me pay you weekly. I thought monthly would work, because it’d keep you around longer if you decided I blew, but let me do it weekly. And I’ll up it, a bit.”

Again, the pity allowed her to break free. Step away from his fingertips against her skin. Even if that stupid touch would remain burned into her memory,
she
was the one who broke it. “I don’t want your charity.” But it was tempting. Necessary. Charity or not, more money…more frequently…the things she could do with that.

“You’ll take it, though, won’t you?”

The “no” was on her lips. The “fuck you.” The “I quit.” But she was too smart to let any of those come out. “Yes. Not much of a choice.”

“You can teach me how to cook.”

“Huh?” She frowned back at him. What was he talking about?

“For the added money, you can teach me how to cook.” He smiled, and as charming as that smile was, it was more dangerous than his innuendo, than his body, than everything. Because that smile was kind. Like when he’d signed that kid’s backpack outside the diner. She had to admit that
he
was kind, and that was dangerous.

Tyler had been kind, but he’d never made her heat from the inside out. That had been the appeal, why she’d agreed to marry him. He’d never leave and ruin her.

Funny, that.

“You want to pay
me
to teach you how to cook? You ate those tough-as-nails pork chops, right?”

“I don’t need to know how to make five-course meals. I just need to know how to put a few things together that might, on occasion, taste better than some crap I put in the microwave. Maybe the pork chops were a little chewy, but it was still better than ‘Budget Frozen Meals for One.’”

She should tell him to talk to Georgia. Or find some old ranch wife who was lonely and bored. But instead, because his smile was kind and she was tired and felt things she didn’t want to feel, the truth slipped out. “I’m not sure we should be spending extra time together.”

His kind smile morphed into that “I’m Dan Sharpe sexy and I know it” smirk, and suddenly she felt less mushy toward him. A lot less mushy.

“Oh really? Why is that?”

She smiled sweetly, batting her eyelashes. “I might be forced to murder you, and Shaw will
really
be in trouble if I’m in prison.”

He chuckled, but then his expression loosened, grew serious again. He looked at her, right in the eye, and whatever toughness or humor she thought she’d grabbed faded away. Her heart hammered, her breath came faster, and before she could think better of it, her eyes dropped to his mouth.

If he kissed her…she would smack him. Push him. Kick him in the balls and ream him out good.

Or you could kiss him back and enjoy something for once in your sad, pathetic adulthood.

“I know I don’t know jack shit
about
jack shit, but I can’t image anything you run could ever fail, Mel.”

His sincerity might have broken a lesser woman, but for her—tough, sturdy, responsible Mel—it was a reminder.

She didn’t have time for Dan Sharpe. For enjoying herself. She had a ranch to save. For her father, and for Caleb, but most of all for herself. It was the one thing that could not leave her. So, nothing was more important than Shaw. Nothing ever had been, and nothing ever would be.

“You ready to go?”

He nodded, and surprise of all surprises, Dan finally shut the hell up and did what she wanted.

* * *

Dan woke up to pounding on his door. He rolled over and pulled the pillow on top of his head, trying to drown out the sound.

But it didn’t stop. It got louder and pounded into his bed. Cursing, Dan gave up and rolled off the mattress, trudging to the door.

Halfway down the hall, his brain engaged enough to know it was Mel. But he was too tired to care, or put a shirt on, or muster up the required apology.

He swung the door open. “Go away. I’m tired.”

Her jaw dropped, then firmed. “I’ll remind you this is a business relationship, and you should be
clothed
at all times, but first, learn this and accept it: you don’t get to run a ranch
and
sleep in.” She pushed past him, and though he supposed she tried to keep enough distance so they didn’t touch, her hip kind of grazed his…underthings.

So
so
not what he needed with her right now. Not after last night. Not this morning when exhaustion would undermine any attempt to be easygoing and charming.

Unfortunately, erections didn’t seem to understand the word
exhaustion
.

“Surely, once in a while, even if you’re running a ranch, you can sleep in. Being your own boss has to have some perks, right?”

“You are so clueless it breaks my brain. Animals don’t give a crap who’s the boss. They need to be cared for every morning. So, no, no perks.”

“I don’t have animals.”

“You have a llama! And if you want to be profitable, you’ll have more than that.”

He took in the dark circles under her eyes, the way her hair wasn’t pulled back quite as tight as it normally was. In fact, her shirt was even buttoned crooked. “You look like you could use a sleep-in.”

“I could. I could use a sleep-in every damn day for the rest of my damn life, but I do not have that luxury, and, this summer, neither do you.” She slammed a hand onto the counter next to the coffeepot. “You could
at least
have coffee going at this point.”

“Well, you’re pleasant this morning,” he muttered. He’d drum up some sympathy for her later, but right now he needed coffee. Even if what he really wanted was sleep.

He’d stayed up way too late being an idiot. Sitting next to that damn llama pen in the pitch dark and reading article after article online about his future.

The picture the media painted wasn’t pretty. The picture his agent painted wasn’t pretty.

Forced retirement.

When he was still as good as he’d been when he’d led his team to the Stanley Cup the first time.
He’d
done that. Practically on his own. No one had picked them to make the playoffs, but he’d been the best damn player in the league, and he’d motivated the rest of the team to step up and follow his lead.

Everyone had said so. He’d been the reason they got there.

And then the reason they’d lost in game seven.

Shit, he really hated thinking about this. He’d come out here to
not
think about this, about how the one thing that had helped him escape when he didn’t know what to do—and Lord knew he never knew what to do—was evaporating, and there was nothing he could do to fix it.

The word
retirement
was being bandied about in a way it never had been before. If no one in the NHL was going to absolve him, he was screwed. And now Mel was barging in, telling him he was failing this too.

That temper he tried to ignore, joke his way out of, stirred, and he didn’t have any reserves left to swallow it down.

“Get dressed.”

Mel’s sharp order cut through the crap in his brain, but it didn’t make him feel any better. “Like what you see?”

“Oh, yes, I can hardly keep my hands to myself,” she said. She was mocking him, and maybe if he’d had more sleep, he’d have the wherewithal not to care, but it pissed him the hell off when he was so close to seeing the end of something he loved.

And she just kept talking.

“Your world must be so nice, Dan. Walk around with more money than you know what to do with, think every woman should fall at your feet. You screwed up, but no one gives a real shit about it, because it’s a damn
game
.” She gave his bare chest a poke at the word
game
, and it was just about the last straw.

He grasped her wrist before she could keep poking or pushing him or whatever the hell it was she was aiming for. But it didn’t help the frustrated, edgy feeling in his bloodstream. Her wrist was somehow dainty and soft, small compared to his big hand encircling it.

He stared at it, and when he glanced up, found she was staring at it too. And damn if that lick of attraction didn’t twist and twirl with anger and frustration, creating a potent desire that had absolutely no place here.

So, he focused on her furious gaze. “You’re in a pissy mood this morning, and I hate to break it to you, but so am I. So let’s agree to step back before we both say a whole bunch of things we don’t really mean.”

She tried to wriggle her hand free, but he held firm.

“I’m pretty sure I’d mean every last one of them,” she said.

“Not going to be satisfied until you have a good fight, huh?”

Finally, she wrenched her hand from his. “I’m not going to be satisfied until you give me an inch.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he had quite a few inches he wouldn’t mind giving her, but she kept on.

“Not being ready when I get here is insulting, Dan. Especially,
especially
, after…last night.” Some of that anger disappeared or lowered into a hurt he didn’t know what to do with. That was the kind of hurt he skated his ass away from.

“You know I’d rather be at my own damn ranch,” she continued. “And I can’t be. The least you could do is make my time here worthwhile.”

Since that made him feel about two inches tall, and since he was tired of her ability to do that—because, sweet damn, the past two years had done plenty to make him feel like that—he forced a smile. Probably more of a nasty smirk.

“Define worthwhile, partner.”

“I know this is all a big joke to you—a fun lark while you wait for other people to get your real life back on track—but you could pretend to care every once in a while.”

It struck a nerve, an exposed one. Struck it hard enough he didn’t have the reserves to laugh it off or pretend it didn’t exist. Not care? He always cared too damn much, so damn much he couldn’t handle it, couldn’t deal with the things he couldn’t fix, so he escaped.

Only there was nowhere left to escape to, so he went on the offensive instead. “Watch it, Mel. I may be trying to be a nice guy these days, but it’s not my first instinct by a long shot.”