The Cougar's Bargain (26 page)

“I was tired,” he whispered.

“Of what?”

“Of just being a cog in the machinery that no one paid any attention to until it was broken. Or, worse, a spare part.”

“I can't believe that.”

He shrugged. His answer for so many things lately, but just like her family had trained her to keep her emotions to herself, she'd probably trained
him
not to say too much because she wouldn't care.

She did, though. “I—”

“Here's one,” Steven interjected, drawing her attention back to his computer screen.

She looked between him and Sean, torn at how to divide her attention. Sean decided it for her, because he looked away. Not at Hannah, not at Steven, but somewhere across the park at nothing in particular.

Don't do this to me. I'm trying so hard.

“This guy is kind of wide open,” Steven said. “People don't lock their information down as tightly as they think. I did a search on the email address he used to register for this forum, and he's got a LinkedIn account and a semi-public Facebook profile. He has a work phone number on the LinkedIn page. It looks like he works in construction management.”

“I'll call him,” Sean said.

“You know what to say?”

Sean turned his head slowly toward Steven and gave him the withering glare he deserved.

“All righty then.” Steven turned the computer around and let Sean glean the phone number.

Sean programmed it into his phone and stood. “I'll call in a bit. Gonna give him time to get settled in at the office. I'm going to check in with Mason and see if Belle is okay.”

He strode away with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his low-slung jeans before Hannah could spit out any objection, not that she could think of one. She just watched him walk across the park, graceful yet so masculine.

Steven cleared his throat.

Hannah sighed and closed her eyes. “What, Steven?”

“So … you wanna explain what's up between the two of you?”

“Probably no more than you want to talk about what you saw overseas.”

“That's not fair. I
will
, just … not now.”

“Because you don't know how to talk about it. I understand that, because I don't know how to talk about Sean.”

“You're a couple, though, right?”

“Strictly speaking, yes. It wasn't by choice, but we are.”

“Are you fine with it?”

“More and more,” she said softly.

“So, you do like him.” It wasn't a question, but an assertion.

She wasn't going to hold back simple truths when honesty was so damned freeing. “Yes.”

“Is he good to you?”

She drew in some air between her teeth and gave her braid a little twist.

“I don't like that pause, Hannah.”

“It's not him. I just … I haven't really let him be. I'm trying to let him be, but I don't know what that's supposed to look like, so I have to pause and analyze every little thing and stop myself from responding before thinking.”

“Yeah.” Steven closed his laptop lid and slumped a bit lower on the bench, matching Hannah's posture. “There's a reason I'm still single, you know. I tell Mom that it's because I'm too busy, but … I guess I'm as afraid as you are at letting anyone get close.”

“Chad and Eric don't seem to be bogged down by the same weights we are.”

“Nah, they're well and truly clueless in that sociopathic way that some politicians are. They've got their blinders on and don't want to try to understand why other people are hurting because it doesn't matter to them.
They
don't hurt, and they think that since they've got their shit together that everyone else should be able to get theirs together, too.”

She put her head against his shoulder and watched that corner of the park in case Sean decided to backtrack. “We are really fucked up, aren't we?”

“No more than anyone else, baby sister. The difference between us and most folks, though, is that we actually know it.”

“We can't fix it.”

“Nah, we can't. Dad's too set in his ways, Mom doesn't handle change well, and Chad and Eric would have to be knocked hard on their asses to dislodge their heads from them. I've come to terms with the decision to love them without liking them.”

“I hope you like
me
a little.”

“Same here. And I won't tell 'em.”

“Huh?”

“About this. I mean, I won't say anything to them about where you are or why you're here, only that you're happy. You
are
happy, aren't you?”

“I think there's the potential for it, once things fall into place. Things are kind of a mess where I live now. Not just with Sean, but in general.”

“Will you let me see it?”

“So you can decide it's not good enough?”

“No. Because I'm curious about what sort of place would finally shake you up enough to open your eyes and make you take some risks.”

“My friends are there, and they're happy. I want that for myself.”

“Me, too, Hannah. Me too.”

Sean figured the best thing he could do for the mission was to stay out of Hannah's hair and Steven's way. Unlike them, he was
too
recognizable, and if he started snooping around, he could undermine every move they made in short order … which made him wonder why he was even there in the first place. He was extra—an accessory, really—being babysat by Hannah while she could be doing more important things.
Mason
could have been babysitting him.

Sean squeezed into the corner booth at Sapphire's and pulled his phone out of his pocket. December sidled up to the table before he could call his brother.

“Early shift today, huh?” he asked.

She shrugged and pushed a glass of water toward him. “I switched with someone. She had a doctor's appointment, and I guess it's okay, because I get off early and can catch the tail end of primetime television for a change.”

“Ever considered looking for a different job?”

“About as often as you have.”

“Low blow, D.”

December would have known exactly how often he'd looked. The bar was one of his haunts during the time he'd left the ranch and bumbled around aimlessly. December hadn't been working there at the time, but her sister had been, and December had been there often to wait for her.

“I'm just not brave enough to go through with it, I guess,” she said. “I'm used to this. I'm afraid I wouldn't catch on to something new.”

“You're young. Your brain is still pretty elastic.”

She cringed. “The more I think about it, the more it stresses me out. If something good fell onto my lap, though, I wouldn't say no to it.”

“Put shit like that out into the universe, and you never know what's going to shake out of it.”

“That's crazy talk, Sean. If anyone in the cosmos were listening, I would have been out of here long ago.” Her perennial smile wilted and she cleared her throat. “So, what are you having?”

“Bring me a cheeseburger, I guess. Hold it for a bit? I need to make a couple of calls.”

“Workin'?”

“Yeah.”

“Want the Wi-Fi password? You could use the Internet to find a better restaurant.”

“Funny. Bring me a beer, will you? Something good for brunch, and not the shit you served Hannah and Steven last night.”

“Oh my God! I got the most complaints about that beer last night. We called the distributor this morning. And it turned out that beer wasn't even supposed to go out. They'd totally messed up the batch.”

“Well, that explains some things.”

“Yeah. Really sorry about that. Tell your friends, okay? I'll be right back with a pitcher of something legit.” She took three steps, then stopped and turned back to him. “Uh. Did you happen to … you know. Talk to Tito?”

He groaned inwardly. “I'll do it today.” He didn't think she was going to like what Tito was going to say, but the woman needed to be put out of her misery. She needed to move on.

She walked away with a bit more pep in her step.

Deciding to bypass Mason altogether and to try to get his information straight from the source, Sean dialed Belle's number, fully expecting her to read the caller ID and not answer. He and his brothers had been keeping a tally. During the hours she wasn't at work at the diner and wasn't asleep, she only answered the phone for her brothers one out of every four attempts. It all depended on her mood. Female Cougars were known to be capricious, and Belle certainly wasn't an outlier.

The jury was still out on Hannah. In a lot of ways, Hannah was
easier
than the women he was used to dealing with, but maybe that was because he hadn't really felt anything for them.

It was hard not to feel something for Hannah. She made his protective instincts flare, and he just wanted to keep touching her because the cat in him said it was his right. And he'd meant what he'd said about her having anything of his. If it made up for some of the hurt she'd endured, he'd give her every scrap he owned, assuming she let him.

Why would she, though?
Groaning, he slouched a bit on the bench to put his foot up on the seat on the other side of the booth.

“What do you want, Sean?” Belle snapped.

He closed his eyes and massaged his throbbing temple. “Fuck. You answered.”

“It's your lucky day.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Sure. Mom bought a new bull, and he's an asshole, but apparently has good-quality baby darts. He's penned near the barn right now. She's waiting for some of the hands to relocate him. They'll probably wait until Darnell gets back since he has the most experience with that.”

“You know that's not what I meant.”

“Well, I got the results of my checkup this morning. My blood pressure is super, cholesterol is low—you'd never know how much crap I eat based on the contents of my bloodstream, I guess—and the doc says my estrogen's a little out of wrack, but not so much to be concerning.”

“
Belle
,” he warned.

“Don't you dare use that voice on me. You have no right. You're not Daddy, and I'm a grown woman. If you're calling to scold me, you can just disconnect right now, so fuck you
very
much.”

Sean gritted his teeth and drew in a long, bolstering breath through his nose.
I just can't win.
“I'm just checking on you. That's my only motive for the call.”

“You could have gotten the same report from Mason.”

“I could have, and if I had, later you would have been pissed that I didn't show concern to you personally.”

“So, you're calling because you feel like you have to and not because you want to?”

“I'm calling because I
want
to and because I worry. Why do I have to defend myself about that?”

“You're the one who's defensive about it. All I did was ask a simple question.”

“Belle, you've been at my throat since the moment you took the call.”

“Maybe it's because I had two very similar calls before I had this one, and none of you are saying anything new. You're the last one in line, Sean.”

“And that's my fault?” Of course it was his fault. It was
always
going to be his fault.

“I don't care whose fault it is. Kindly mind your own business and I'll mind mine.”

“You
are
my business, whether you like it or not.”

“Because we're
family
, right? You're calling to give me advice and counsel now? Making up for lost time?”

“That's a fucked up thing to say, when you know I've been trying so damn hard to be present. And, actually, I just called to listen, but you never gave me the chance to.”

“Whatever. If I needed a listening ear, I'd call Mom. Or Miles. She's good at that. The rest of y'all—you guys, you just suck at it. You didn't want to hear what I had to say about your mates, and look how hard you made it. Don't act like you care what I have to say now. Don't act like you care what's going on in my life, because I know better.”

“Belle, I
do
care. I just can't—”

He clipped the statement, and it didn't matter. He was going to tell her that he couldn't be everywhere at once, and that he couldn't be everything to everyone, but she'd disconnected right after she said
know better
, and it'd taken him a moment to process the click.

“Fuck.” He raked his hair back from his face and gave it a tug. He was never going to be able to do right, as far as his family was concerned. No matter how hard he tried, he was always going to be treated as the flake who went away when times got tough.

He didn't even bother trying to call Mason. He'd probably just get himself another lecture.

December slid a pitcher of beer and a cold mug onto the table in front of him and hurried off to greet a group of bikers at the door. She liked keeping them close to the bar where the former Special Forces bartender could keep an eye on them.

Sean poured. Sipped. Brought up a text message menu, and stared at the white box unseeing for a long while.

He couldn't change the past, and if he had it all to do over again, he wasn't so sure he would. He'd done what he had to at the time to cope with what was happening in his life. Maybe it was something of a quarter-life crisis, but it was his, and he owned it.

But Belle was right about one thing, even if he thought she was ignorant and overly harsh about the others. She
had
tried to tell Sean, Hank, and Mason that the best way to go about capturing their mates was to be honest and upfront about what was happening. Fear wasn't a great way to start a relationship.

Back at that campground, they could have introduced themselves, explained what they were, and proven it if they had to. And then they should have apologized for what they had to do—for what they had to
try
. If the women had known what was going on, they might have been less resistant. That didn't mean they wouldn't have said no, only that the respect would have been there—the proof that in spite of the way the men acted, they did see their mates as human beings. Or
mostly
human in the case of Ellery and now Hannah.