Renegade: A Taggart Brothers Novel (9 page)

What a mess. What an absolute mess. In the past few hours, she’d tried to talk to her children about the divorce, about why they’d come to Utah. She’d tried to keep things as upbeat and general as possible.

Your father and I have grown apart.

This is a fresh start for all of us.

Her explanations sounded weak and halfhearted even to Bronte. But she couldn’t force herself to shatter the last of their illusions by sharing the ugliness of the whole truth.

Your father is a drug addict. He’s been an addict for years. I tried to help him, but he’s become irrational and violent. When he threatened your safety, I couldn’t—I
wouldn’t—
live through one more day of fear.

From its spot on the bedside table, her cell phone chirped, signaling that she’d received a text.

Her eyes squeezed shut and she battled against the pressure building in her chest. Trust Phillip to continue his never-ending campaign to harass her. Since she’d insisted on a formal separation several years ago, his messages followed a familiar, sickening cycle: a request for money or time with the girls or a reconciliation, followed by flattery, sharp-edged cajoling, bitter complaints, then acid recrimination, and finally threats. At first she’d read them all, blaming herself for not being kind enough, patient enough, loving enough—until he’d torn down every shred of self-respect that she’d been able to scrape together.

Early on, she’d blamed herself for not seeing the signs, for not knowing that her husband had begun to depend on the painkillers prescribed by a colleague for a knee injury, that he’d then begun to “self-medicate” with samples from his clinic, then with forged prescriptions, then whatever street drugs he could score. By the time her suspicions were finally confirmed, his medical license was in jeopardy and their home life was in turmoil. So they’d agreed he would go to rehab.

Within a few months of his return, things began to slip again, expensive items in their home disappeared as he pawned them for cash. Soon, he was missing appointments at work, or she would find him passed out on the bathroom floor. Which led to another rehab . . . and another . . . and another. Before long, Phillip’s relapses were occurring within days of his return from the treatment centers, then hours.

It was at that point that Bronte had insisted on the formal separation. She needed to get her children away from the toxic environment that Phillip’s addiction created—and she’d thought that the threat of losing his family would finally shock him into sobriety.

But he’d loved the promise of euphoria more than he’d ever loved any of them.

Her phone chirped again and she growled, snatching it from the table. She’d divorced him, damnit—and she didn’t need to worry how her children would react to the news because they’d already made their feelings clear. They hated
her for not sticking things out, for not trying harder, for dragging them halfway across the country, for—

She was about to turn the phone off when she caught sight of the number. It wasn’t one she recognized, and the area code was from Utah.

Bronte hesitated before touching the notice to see the entire text.

R U OK?

The previous message was the same.

Jace.

A sound that was half laugh, half sob escaped her lips. She was ready to send back a noncommittal reply when her thumbs seemed to move of their own accord.

No.

Only seconds passed before she received a response.

Meet @ swing in ur backyard. Ten minutes.

He was coming here. If her children saw them together . . .

But at that point, Bronte didn’t care. After everything that had occurred—that last bitter argument with Phillip, her headlong escape to Bliss, her grandmother’s accident, the blowup with her children—she would take comfort wherever it might be offered.

Dragging a pair of jeans on beneath the oversized T-shirt she’d worn to bed, she jammed her feet into a pair of flip-flops. She checked Lily first, finding her curled in an exhausted ball, the covers bunched beneath her chin, then Kari, who was sprawled across the bed, the earbuds to her iPod firmly in place. After kissing both children, adjusting the covers, and removing the earbuds entirely, Bronte padded down the stairs, mindful of each squeak and creak of the floorboards. She hadn’t heard Jace’s truck yet, but she slipped outside, wincing at the low whine of the screen door.

As she headed across grass that was already wet with dew, a tall shape detached itself from the tree and she immediately recognized Jace’s silhouette. Behind him, a horse snuffled in greeting before returning to lazily crop a patch of grass with its teeth.

“You’re a smart man,” she murmured, gesturing to his mount.

“Apparently not smart enough. I’m sorry. I should have—”

“Shh.”

The need to touch him, to draw comfort from the warmth of another human being, was so overwhelming that she placed her fingers over his lips to silence him. “It doesn’t matter. It really, really doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be told I need to feel ashamed of something that I wanted to happen.”

Wordlessly, Jace drew her into his arms, tucking her head beneath his chin. Unspoken between them was the fact that they had crossed an invisible line somewhere in the last few hours. They could no longer call themselves mere friends. But Bronte also knew that was all they could ever be. Life had already grown so complicated that she couldn’t add another element to the mix. Her children needed to remain her chief priority. Even if it meant denying herself this tiny shred of happiness.

Her fingers curled into his shirt, digging into the taut strength of his back. She knew that she should step away. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been held like this. She hadn’t realized how starved she’d become for simple human contact until the heat of his body seeped into hers.

Jace wrapped his arms even more tightly around her, one broad hand cradling the back of her head. She could hear the thump of his heart and the steady sound lulled her into a semblance of peace.

“What can I do to help?” Jace asked, his voice a low velvet murmur.

She shook her head against his chest. “What happened tonight was inevitable. It’s my fault for not telling them right
away about the divorce. I figured that I had a little more time to broach the subject.”

Knowing that if she stayed where she stood, she might never allow Jace to let her go, Bronte reluctantly took a step backward. But when she would have withdrawn completely, Jace snagged her hand, lacing their fingers together and drawing her toward the glider swing under the porch awning. Brushing stray leaves and dust off the seat, he sat down, then pulled her onto the cushion beside him. He draped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into the crook of his arm.

“Weren’t you and your husband already separated?”

She grimaced. “That’s probably where I made my first mistake. We had a brownstone in Boston and there was a walk-down apartment in the basement. When Phillip became . . . erratic, I insisted that he move there. Looking back, I should have insisted that he move out altogether, but . . . I thought it would be better for the girls if he were nearby.”

Jace nudged at the ground with his foot, causing the swing to sway. Silence pooled around them and Bronte appreciated the way that Jace didn’t push for more details. He seemed content to let her feel her way through her own emotions.

“I tried to hold things together, Jace. But there came a point where I had to say, ‘Enough.’ I couldn’t pretend that he was the same man I’d married anymore. I couldn’t allow him to hurt my children.”

The swing eased to a stop and she wondered if she’d said too much. She’d heard it all before:
Stand by your man, especially in the grips of his addiction. You’re his lifeline. He needs you.

She’d done her best. She’d supported him as long as she could. She’d tried to be his wife, his friend, his mother, his conscience. She’d tried babying and tough love. She’d kept an encouraging smile on her face as they’d drained their bank accounts sending him to rehab over and over again. Even their divorce proceedings had been started in an effort to scare him into seeing that he was throwing his life away.

Through it all, she’d watched him morph into a stranger—one that frightened her. She’d been sapped of every ounce of emotional and physical strength as she worked two jobs to keep food on their table and a roof over their heads while Phillip’s practice had dwindled in neglect. Eventually, each day had become an exercise in survival. She went through the moves like a zombie, dead inside. Even then, she’d willed herself to “stand by her man.”

Until he’d pulled a gun and threatened to hurt their children.

She jolted when a hand touched her face. Too late, she realized that she’d sunk back into a morass of memories. But it wasn’t until Jace’s thumb swiped her cheek that she felt the tear slipping down it.

“What can I do to help you, Bronte?”

His voice was warm and low in the darkness. The velvety timber seemed to seep into her bones and wrap around her heart.

“I’ll stay away, if you want,” he whispered. “Maybe you need this time alone with your kids—”

“No.” She hadn’t meant the word to interrupt so forcefully, but once it had been uttered, it couldn’t be taken back. Her hand closed around his wrist and she absorbed the warmth of his skin and the hard masculinity of sinew and muscle. For some reason, that concrete anchor gave her the courage to say, “No. I don’t have so many friends that I can afford to throw one away.”

The word
friend
tasted strange as she uttered it—because the term didn’t fit as well as it should. But she shied away from using anything else, knowing that she had to keep her focus on her girls and her grandmother.

Jace pulled her toward him, kissing her lightly on the forehead. A friend’s kiss—as if he’d accepted the role she’d given him. Then, he tucked her beneath his chin, his arms surrounding her and warding off the spring chill. Touching his toe to the ground, he set the swing in motion.

Bronte closed her eyes, knowing that she wanted to hold on to this moment for as long as it lasted. The warmth of
Jace’s body seeped into hers like a balm, easing the stiffness of muscles held too tightly in check for a cross-country journey, and longer. It was as if her body had been clenched in brittle readiness for flight long before her mind had been willing to acknowledge the need.

Beneath her ear, she heard the
thump, thump
of Jace’s heart, the soft sough of his breath. He smelled subtly of soap and man and leather. With each nudge of his boot, she breathed out the remnants of her tension and breathed in Jace, until she couldn’t determine where she ended and he began.

Don’t do this. Don’t allow yourself to feel anything too intimate. Don’t do anything that could jeopardize what you already have.

But as her eyes began to drift and her limbs grew heavy . . .

Bronte knew it was already too late.

J
ACE
knew when Bronte surrendered to sleep. She burrowed closer to him, and then, in an instant, her body became boneless in his arms.

He supposed that he should wake her and urge her to go inside. It was getting cold and her arms and feet were bare. But he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her yet.

She was so beautiful, especially in sleep. Her guard was dropped and her vulnerability was clear. Although she’d only hinted at the troubles that had driven her to Utah, he could see the evidence of her struggles in the dark circles beneath her eyes, the jut of her cheekbones. With only the porch light as illumination, she was a study in angles—and he’d bet it had been some time since she’d had regular meals. He could imagine that her circumstances had made eating anything at all a chore. But none of that detracted from the velvety softness of her skin, the fullness of her lips, and the incongruous splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Jace threaded his fingers through her hair. It was longer than he’d first supposed. She usually wore it in a ponytail or twisted at the back of her head. But tonight, it hung in
long wavy strands that twined around his fingers like a silk waterfall.

If she was this beautiful now, with worry and tension creasing her brow, how much more lovely would she be once she realized that she didn’t have to look over her shoulder anymore?

A surge of possessiveness shot through him. More than anything, he wanted to see that metamorphosis. He wanted to see the haunted light fade from her gaze.

But even as his protective instincts raged through his body, he realized that he had no right to feel that way. Bronte had made it clear that she wanted nothing more than friendship from him.

Much as he might want to argue, he knew she was right. She had enough on her plate without adding a relationship to the mix. And her children had made their position on such a possibility crystal clear.

Hell, the last thing
he
needed was a woman in his life. He had a ranch to run, his brothers to oversee—and he wasn’t on Barry’s list of favorite people either. If Jace didn’t get out of here soon, away from the pressures that had been piling on top of him for far too long, he was going to crack.

So he would have to keep things casual with Bronte.

Knowing that he couldn’t keep Bronte out in the cold for much longer, Jace ran a finger over her cheek, her jaw, then very slowly across her bottom lip.

Friends.

He’d focus on what had to be done: planting, the mares about to give birth, doing the books, taking care of Barry.

Friends.

He could keep his eye on her by continuing to drop by for breakfasts or bringing his brother to play with Lily. He could invite them to the Big House for Sunday dinner or horseback riding. Surely, with the promise of Wi-Fi and the animals, he could get back on the good side of her girls. Especially if he kept things between himself and Bronte completely platonic.

Friends.

Good
friends
.

He bent to give her one last kiss on the top of her head. Then, knowing he was risking World War III, he maneuvered so that he could stand, then scooped Bronte up into his arms. Judging by the circles under her eyes, she hadn’t been sleeping well—and he wasn’t about to wake her. So he would have to carry her into the house and tuck her into bed—hopefully, without waking her daughters.

Really, really good friends.

Bronte seemed to burrow into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He thought she was rousing, but mumbling something under her breath, she sank back into sleep.

Carefully, he crossed the yard, wincing at the squeak of the screen door. But then he was moving silently through the kitchen. Once on the staircase, he kept to the sides of the treads to avoid most of the creaks and groans of an old house, then he slowly made his way down the hall to Annie’s room. Lifting one finger, he pushed the door open, clenching his jaw when it swung wide on noisy hinges.

He wasn’t really sure where Bronte was sleeping, but a quick glance around the room let him know that there were no children present. The rumpled bed and yawning suitcases seemed to point to Bronte having made this her temporary resting spot.

Moving forward, he lay Bronte on the bed, then, much as he did with Barry each night, he made sure she was covered by the blankets. She probably wouldn’t be too comfortable spending the night in her jeans, but he knew that he would definitely stray across the “buddy” line if he tried to take them off her.

Besides, the sight of those long legs bare and kissed by moonlight would probably be his undoing.

So he stood there for one last minute, risking exposure, but unable to move away. A rush of emotions thundered through him—tenderness, impatience, attraction, possessiveness—becoming muddied together with an insurmountable need to break free of the constant
sameness
of the ranch, his brother’s care, and the shackles of his responsibilities.

Dear God, was this it?
Was this how the rest of his life was supposed to be?

Or could there be more?

Ashamed and overwhelmed, Jace turned away. As quickly as he dared, he hurried from Annie’s house, rushed through the dewy grass, and threw himself into his horse’s saddle. Then, after guiding the horse a fair distance away, he spurred it into a gallop, needing the thunder of hooves and the wind tearing at his clothes to drive away the needs that could never be fulfilled.

*   *   *

ELAM
stood leaning against the deck railing outside his bedroom, waiting for P.D. to finish with her shower. A warm cup of decaf was cradled between his palms, but it wasn’t the night or the full planter’s moon on the horizon that captured his attention. From his vantage point high on the hillside, he could see most of Bliss below him. Yet, it was the horse and rider streaking across the pasture that he tracked.

“Damn fool is going to break his neck,” he muttered to himself.

But it wasn’t the dangerous gallop in the darkness that concerned Elam most.

Until P.D. had stormed into his life, Elam had been so wrapped up in his own misery that he hadn’t paid much attention to what was going on around him. But since meeting Prairie Dawn, he’d returned to the world of the living with a bang—and in doing so, he’d become uncomfortably aware of how many of the responsibilities had fallen onto Jace’s shoulders.

“What’s going on?”

P.D. slipped her arms around his waist and pressed tightly against him from behind. It wasn’t lost on him that P.D. was wearing the silky robe that he’d proclaimed was his favorite . . . and nothing else.

He gestured to the valley below and the horse tearing into the main yard of the Big House.

“He’s going to break his neck,” P.D. remarked, echoing Elam’s words. “Where’s he been?”

Elam gestured toward the trees that obscured Annie Ellis’s house.

P.D. laughed. A low velvety laugh that would have tightened Elam’s body if it weren’t already reacting from the pressure of her breasts against his back. “They might try to fight it, but there’s . . . zing between them.”

“P.D.,” he drawled in warning. Since the two of them had linked up, P.D. had caught the “love bug” and seemed intent on matching up the rest of her friends two by two. “Leave him alone.”

“Whatever do you mean?” she asked innocently.

Elam scowled, watching as Jace brought the mount to a skidding halt under the bright light over the barn. For several minutes, his brother seemed frozen in place, then he dismounted with a weariness that Elam wouldn’t have thought possible from such a young man.

“Don’t interfere.”

P.D.’s fingers were straying toward the buttons of his shirt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her gentle foray down his chest was playing havoc with his thoughts, so he grabbed her hand and pulled her around into his arms.

“Don’t push the two of them together.”

She stood on tiptoe to press a kiss to his jaw. “Don’t you think Jace needs someone in his life?”

Elam’s heart was thudding into second gear, then third, but he forced himself to pull away. “Please. Leave him alone.”

P.D.’s brows creased in confusion when she realized that Elam’s warning held a more serious edge than he’d intended. “Elam?”

Elam’s jaw clenched as he tried to put his gut feelings into words. There wasn’t anything tangible that he could use as a defense. Outwardly, Jace was the same as he always was. He handled everything with methodical ease—the planting, Barry, the business end of Taggart Enterprises. He even kept Bodey in line, which was tantamount to a miracle.

But . . .

Elam sensed that something was going on underneath it all. There was a tension to Jace’s voice, a brittleness to his posture.

Elam waited, absorbing the warmth of P.D.’s embrace until his brother emerged from the barn and strode toward the house, his head down, shoulders hunched, arms bent and held slightly away from his body as if he expected a fight. In that instant, Elam knew what it was about his brother’s manner lately that was so concerning. Elam had seen Jace acting this way once before.

“He’s about to go renegade again,” Elam muttered, watching as Jace disappeared into the house.

“What?” Sensing Elam’s concern, P.D. twisted to follow his line of sight. “What do you mean: ‘He’s about to go renegade’?”

Elam held his breath, watching a trail of lights turning on and off as Jace made his way through the house. Family room, staircase, upper hall. Elam waited for the lights to lead toward the attic, praying for the light in the attic. Heaven only knew that the time had come for Jace to reconcile himself with the past.

“Jace has always been different from the rest of us Taggart males. Sure, he’s got his fair share of testosterone, but there’s a sensitive side to him as well. While Bodey and I were kicking cans and breaking windows, Jace . . . well, Jace was tending to wounded animals or bringing home the new kid who had no friends. When we got older, Bodey and I both joined the high school’s football and rodeo teams—as did Jace. But I don’t think they were the live and die activities that they were to Bodey and me. I think, for Jace, they were just something to do. Instead, he liked to draw and sculpt. And he was pretty damned good.

“Looking back on it now, I think we all thought it was just a hobby. None of us really took it too seriously. When he insisted that he had no interest in going to college or working on the ranch because he wanted to be an artist, we thought he was kidding.”

“Really?” P.D. was genuinely surprised. “Didn’t you tell me that Jace has an advanced degree in business? I can’t imagine him doing anything else.” She burrowed closer. “He doesn’t seem unhappy now.”

Elam shook his head. “It’s not something I can point to, it’s . . .” He looked down at P.D., marveling again at how this woman, this incredible human being, had thrown him a lifeline when he was about to go under. If it weren’t for her, he would still be stomping around mad at the world—or worse.

But Jace . . .

His was a different kind of pain.

“A few years before my parents’ accident, he started acting . . . I don’t know. Itchy, discontented. Like the world was pressing down on him with such force, that if he didn’t break away from it all, he’d crack. Jace was about eighteen, nineteen, when he got this way before. My dad was bound and determined that—since I was in the military and away so much—he needed to train Jace to take over Taggart Enterprises. I know what Dad was thinking. This ranch has been in the family for generations and he didn’t want another son to opt out of seeing to its success.” Elam felt a flash of guilt, knowing that he was partially to blame for his father’s worries.

He pulled P.D. even more tightly against him. “Anyway, Dad was openly antagonistic about Jace’s own goals for the future. Crazy as it sounds, he thought Jace was . . . soft and needed toughening up. He was sure that a few years of hard work and added responsibilities on the ranch would show Jace how fulfilling the job could be. At first, it seemed like a good fit. Jace agreed to give it a try and he caught on quick—even Dad was impressed. He started taking classes in business and accounting at Utah State and handling more of the business aspects of Taggart Enterprises.”

Elam held his breath, waiting—praying—for the attic light to turn on.

“So . . .”

The hall light had been blazing for some time, as if Jace stood there, undecided.

Elam looked down at P.D., seeing that he’d passed his concern to her.

“Then he started to get tense. Restless. Short-tempered. Until, one afternoon, when my father criticized something Jace had done. I don’t even remember now what Bodey said it was—something nitpicky like the way he’d stacked bales in the yard. From what Bodey told me, Jace exploded. He and my dad got into a rip-roaring, raise-the-roof argument. Then Jace stormed out of my dad’s office, strode up to his room in the attic, gathered some of his things in a backpack, and left—no word, no explanation, no contact.”

“For how long?”

Elam took a breath and admitted, “Until we finally got ahold of him in Germany a week after our parents’ and little sister’s deaths—it took a private detective to find him. By that time, he’d been gone over two years. Since then . . . he hasn’t said a word to anyone about where he was or what he was doing all that time. He won’t talk about it.”