Undeniable (35 page)

“I doubt you’ll recognize him.”

Her purse strap twisted around her fingers, Arwen glanced at the woman sharing her bench. “Pardon me?”

“Your father,” she said, inclining her head toward Hoyt’s apartment. “He’s changed a lot. You may not recognize him.”

“You know who I am?” she asked, because it just seemed rude to tell a stranger she didn’t know what she was talking about.

The older woman nodded. “He talks about you all the time. But obviously you haven’t read his letters to know about me.”

Letters? “He’s never written me.”

“Oh, sweetie, he writes to you all the time. But now I’m wondering if he’s never mailed them.” The woman turned on the bench, held out her hand. “I’m Andrea Staples. Hoyt calls me Andi.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really confused.”

“Of course you are,” Andrea said, withdrawing her hand, which Arwen hadn’t meant to ignore. “I’ve just been so anxious to meet you that I didn’t stop to think you’d have no idea who I
was. And Hoyt’s been a basket case of nerves today, and I didn’t want you out here alone in case he’s late.”

“You and my father are…”

Andi cocked her head, her blue eyes bright and young, her hair a sleek bob of white. “Boyfriend and girlfriend? Or is that too strange to say at our age?”

Strange, unexpected… She’d been prepared for changes, but not for this. “I don’t know what to say.”

“That surprises you, doesn’t it? Because of your mother. You thought she was the love of his life, which she very well may have been. But I had my first love, too, and yet here we are, growing old together.”

Arwen reached up and rubbed the pounding ache from her temple. “You know about my mother.”

“I know about Beverly, yes,” Andi said, crossing her legs and tucking close the fabric of her skirt. “And about you. And about all the time you spent with Hoyt in the Buck Off Bar.”

This woman might be her father’s… girlfriend, but Arwen didn’t know her, and was not going to talk about the bar. Except her father had talked about the bar. “You said he’d changed. How has he changed?”

Andi crossed her arms. “Well, he’s sober, for one. He hasn’t had a drink in the seven years I’ve known him.”

Seven years. She’d been seven years old when her mother had died. She’d been stealing money from her father’s wallet seven years later. And seven years after that she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore.

All this time she’d pictured him alone, drunk and in mourning, forgetting, ignoring. And yet here he was, living a normal life, sober, in love. It surprised her, but it lifted a heavy weight. As hurt as she’d been, she’d never wished ill on her father.

“I’m glad,” she said, and meant it. “When he left Crow Hill, he promised he’d stop drinking. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“I think it took getting out of Crow Hill for him to realize he did.”

“It’s where he lived with my mother. It’s where he lost her.”

“Sometimes we need that distance to see things clearly,” Andi said, holding Arwen’s gaze as thoughts flitted through her mind. Was that what Dax was doing now? Seeing things clearly? Or would that not happen until he reached Montana?

“Hello, Arwen.”

At the sound of her father’s voice, she sucked in a sharp breath, and her heart broke, and she was sobbing even before she lifted her gaze to his. Even then she only made it to his shoulders. Seeing that much of him had her hunched forward, pain piercing her midsection until she thought her back would break.

Hoyt Poole dropped to a squat in front of her, wrapped his arms around her, patted and rubbed and did what he could to comfort her. But Arwen was beyond comfort. Why had she let so much time go by? Why hadn’t she forgiven him?

Why had it taken losing Dax for her to understand?

“Oh, Daddy. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you, too, sweetie.” His voice was husky but clear and confident, and his arms felt strong, his shoulders, too. And he smelled like her father, the wonderfully comforting woodsy scent she’d always searched out beneath the booze.

He wasn’t weak anymore. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I should’ve come to see you long before now. I was stupid to wait. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me, or talk to me. That you’d walk away. I made up all sorts of reasons I shouldn’t come—”

“Arwen, look at me.” She did, and he stared into her eyes, his bright and focused and so wonderful to see. “You are beautiful. I
knew you were, but you’re so much more now. Andi, isn’t she just gorgeous?”

“She’s perfect. Here. Let me take a picture of you two.” Andi hopped up from the bench, pulling an iPhone from the pocket of her skirt. “Hoyt, sit beside Arwen. There. Just like that.”

And just like that, her father’s arm around her, their heads pressed close, Arwen let go of her past.

A
FTER LEARNING THE
truth from Dax about Greg, Darcy had spent the night at the ranch house instead of driving back to Crow Hill. She and Dax had stayed up late and talked. He’d told her about Montana. She’d told him about high school, about law school, about throwing her cap in the air at graduation and looking up to see The Campbell leaving the auditorium as it came down.

Dax had admitted to her that he loved Arwen, but he’d never in his life loved anyone, and he didn’t know what to do with that love. She’d told him that she loved Josh, and laughed when he frowned, the big brother she remembered and adored looking after her. Then they talked about Greg, what to do about Greg, whether they wanted to do anything at all, and realizing they had to. He was kin. And he needed to know the other side of Wallace Campbell. The man who wanted a successor, not a son.

She’d stayed the next two days, too, and watched from her
second-floor bedroom window as he’d come back from a trip to Arwen’s and packed. When Arwen had arrived later, she’d heard the two of them argue, not the details of their fight, but the tone. She ached for her brother, for the woman he loved, the woman she was pretty sure loved him, too, and it had her comparing their explosive relationship to what she had with Josh. He was just as intense, just as passionate, but he was the definition of still waters.

This morning she’d gone back to work organizing and cleaning and looking at the Daltons’ furnishings with more than decorating in mind. Even though he’d packed, Dax still hadn’t left, and she wasn’t going to leave the ranch until he did. Or so had been the plan. Until Josh had called. She’d told him everything. About Greg. About Dax leaving. About realizing she was free from her ties to The Campbell.

He’d said four words. “I want you. Tonight.”

The rest of the day had been a blur.

Now she sat cross-legged in the middle of his bed, the pillows jumbled comfortably behind her, the sheet and blanket tangled around her feet. She didn’t know what to say, and words were impossible and unneeded and would do nothing but float in the air between them. She’d wanted this and waited for it, and her senses were like a sponge, absorbing everything about the man in front of her taking off his clothes, baring his body to complete what the baring of their souls had begun.

He’d removed his boots earlier. They sat by the front door with three other pairs, beneath the rack where he hung all his hats. Both were the first thing he shed at the end of the day, and the last thing he put on before leaving. She liked knowing that about his schedule, about him, how orderly he was, how set in his bachelor ways. And yet he’d adjusted for her without a single complaint, making room, cooking for two, sharing his shower, giving up his bed.

She hadn’t wanted him to give up his bed. She’d wanted him to join her, to hold her, to fall asleep against her back, his breath stirring her hair. She’d wanted to feel his warmth and his weight, to push her sole against the top of his foot, to feel his knees spooned into hers. She’d wanted to look into his eyes as he moved above her, into her, sinking deep inside her body, his shoulders straining, his neck taut. And finally,
finally,
all of that was going to be hers.

He was beautiful. So very very beautiful. And she was certain if she told him that, used those words, he would tell her he wasn’t beautiful at all. Oh, but he would be wrong. He was tall, his limbs long, the proportions perfect. His shoulders weren’t too broad, but built exactly as wide as they needed to be. And they were strong. She knew that from touching him. He might work behind the store’s register, but he had no trouble hefting huge bags of feed or seed or soil.

And she loved loved
loved
his hands. So capable and so big, and the way he’d touched her before now, gently, reverently, with purpose every time, she loved that, too. She couldn’t wait to see the rest of him, to learn the rest of him, and he was taking way too much time undressing, and she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Hurry,” she told him, balling the sheets in her hands because he’d told her not to take off a thing.

When he came to her he was naked and aroused and not the least bit shy or put off by her audible gasp. He climbed onto the bed, crawled over her, not stopping until he’d covered her with his body and pushed her down, pinning her with his weight.

He aligned his hips with hers, pushed his penis between her thighs, and settled his forearms above her shoulders as he stared down into her eyes. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you?”

As long as she’d waited for him. She just hadn’t known she’d
been waiting. “You don’t have to wait any longer. I’m here. I’ll be here as long as you want me.”

He brushed her hair from her face, used his knuckles to caress her ear, her neck, her cheek. “I want you for the rest of my days. I want to go to sleep wrapped around you. I want to wake up the same. I want to talk about what’s for supper over breakfast, and talk about our days curled up on the couch. I love you, Darcy Campbell. I want you to be my wife. But right now what I want is to get you out of your clothes.”

Because she had no voice, she nodded. Because she wanted everything he did, she lifted her arms when he nudged her to let him take off her top. Because she couldn’t deny him anything, she lifted her hips when he rolled away to strip her free of panties.

When he reached for a condom, she took it from him and sat up to sheath him, her throat tightening further when she touched him, when he jumped in her hand, when he groaned. She lay back then, looping her arms around his neck and bringing him with her, opening her legs for him, opening her heart for him.

He pushed into her slowly, taking his time as he did with everything, holding her gaze as he filled her, emotion like water in his eyes. His tenderness was going to make her cry, that and the way she knew he loved her, would always be there for her, would never let her wonder where she fit in his life.

“Are you okay?” he asked once he’d gone as far as he could go. “Am I hurting you?”

“I’m fine. I’m wonderful.” She found herself laughing. “I’m so good you wouldn’t believe.”

“Would you like me to make that good better?”

Could it get any better than this? “Oh, yes, please.”

“My pleasure,” he said, and brought his lips down to hers, his tongue sliding between them as he rocked his hips against hers.

She gasped into his mouth, breathed into his mouth, hooked
her heels in the small of his back and held him tight. The base of his cock rubbed her, and each stroke of his body deep into hers brought her up off the bed. When he slowed, she wanted to hit him to get him started again, but then he moved his mouth down her neck to her breast and slipped a hand between her legs to play.

“You taste so good,” he said, the words breathed against her damp skin. “And you smell so good,” he added, and she closed her eyes. “And you feel so goddamn good,” he finished with, and that made her smile because she didn’t think she’d ever heard him curse.

And then she chuckled and he raised his head, smiling down. “Having fun at my expense?”

“Having a very, very good time at your expense. You make me happy. You make me… happy,” she said again, though it seemed so insufficient a word for the joy sweeping through her.

She wanted him to know her joy, to share her joy, and she reached for his hands, lacing their fingers against the mattress, shoulder high. He pushed down, holding her, and she looked into his eyes and said, “Love me.”

“For the rest of my life,” he said, and she knew then she’d found the rest of hers.

“T
HANKS
, D
AD
. I love you, too. Tell Andi hello for me.”

Arwen hung up the phone, her hand resting on the receiver, holding on to the tender connection. She pictured her father with Andi, laughing, teasing, then pictured him as she’d seen him for most of her life, looking older than his years, depressed and dejected, his smiles few and far between and forced just for her because she was a little girl and needed her daddy to smile.

It was hard to reconcile the Hoyt Poole she’d grown up with in the Buck Off Bar with the man she’d seen two days ago in Austin. She was happy for him, that he’d turned his life around, that he’d found a good woman to share it with him. That he’d moved on and was looking forward.

She was more happy about that than anything else because it gave her hope. Her short-lived romance with Dax hadn’t ended in tragedy, and her mourning was nothing compared to her father’s.

If he could keep thoughts of her mother tucked away to remember fondly, she could do the same with her memories of Dax, the man she loved, happy and healthy and raising Dalton Gang hell.

Or she could one day. Just not yet.

Who knew the past she’d been trying to put behind her would plant itself so completely in her present—and that she would be happy to have it there? She had Dax to thank for forcing her to see her father, even if the choice to do so was hers.

Too bad her forcing him to see his had produced an opposite result. She couldn’t regret that she’d done so, even if they’d both paid a terrible price. At least Dax knew where he stood, and that his decision to leave at eighteen had been the right one.

God, she was going to miss him. From a distance of two days, she couldn’t imagine getting over him for a very long time. Hearing her father talk about the steps he’d taken to get sober, she knew change of any kind would require patience, and the strength not to give up.