Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) (7 page)

SEVEN

E
VERLY DIDN’T WORK
on Saturdays, but was quite sure Boone did. Ranchers, she’d learned since leaving the city for cattle country, kept incredibly long hours. To make their living off the land, they had no choice. They didn’t sit at a desk, in an air-conditioned office, electronics the tools of their trade. They were at the mercy of Mother Nature, using brute strength and cunning to beat the bitch at her game.

All of that made getting in touch with the rancher she needed to talk to difficult. Thanks to Faith, she had the number to the house’s landline, but either he didn’t carry his cell when riding the range, or there was no service out there with the prairie dogs and rattlesnakes and cows. That left her stuck having to call the house until he answered, or leaving a message and hoping he was the one who got it instead of Casper or Dax.

Boone needed to hear about her assignment ASAP. Especially since Faith and Arwen would, by now, have told their men about it—Everlys’ fault for feeling compelled to share, an anomaly she still hadn’t worked out. It wasn’t like she’d told friends and family members of other story subjects what was coming. But this one arriving on the heels of having Boone in her bed . . .

She sighed, second-guessing yesterday. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the story to her girlfriends at all, and instead cornered all three members of the Dalton Gang at once, slamming them with a hard-hitting interrogation the way Whitey wanted—even if he hadn’t spelled it out in so many words. She’d known him four years. He didn’t have to.

Scoops. Exclusives. Bombshells. She was supposed to drop explosive questions into her interviews, giving no advance warning, then watch the shrapnel fly. It was her job to knock the three members of the Dalton Gang off balance, to bleed their secrets onto the page. Collateral damage was nothing. No details were off-limits, no matter how revealing, how hurtful.

Her arms crossed on her kitchen table, her chin braced on her stacked hands, she stared unblinking at the cordless handset of her house phone. It stood on end between the bottle of CapRock Roussanne she’d just opened and the glass of the same she’d just poured. She hated what passed for news these days: the sensationalism, the exposés, the absolute lack of respect for privacy as long as the story was served.

Even before the last straw with Toby, which had cast an unwanted limelight on her, she’d decided she was done with anything that smacked of tabloid journalism. That sort of reporting had its place: selling papers, gaining viewers, giving a public hungry for celebrity news what they wanted. But having her own life pried into had shown her what happened on the other side of the camera or pen.

She wouldn’t do that to the Dalton Gang. She wouldn’t have done it even before yesterday morning with Boone. Not to say yesterday morning wasn’t going to make keeping the story impersonal a challenge, but at least she didn’t have to worry about his feelings, or hers, since their encounter had been purely sexual, no emotions involved, no promises given, no future plans made.

Still, she did have her assignment, and spending Saturday night home alone drinking wine was not going to get it done. She’d just picked up her phone to dial again, staring at the dark display, when the screen lit up and it rang. Boone’s number, but he wouldn’t know who he was calling.

“Hello?”

She answered, then listened to him grumble and curse in the background while her voice registered. “I’ve got fourteen missed calls from your number. I was about to tear whoever’d been harassing me with hang-ups a new one.”

She cringed. Hard to blame him. “Sorry. I didn’t want to leave a message. I kept hoping I’d catch you.”

“You’ve been calling the house off and on all afternoon. Why would you expect to catch me here?”

“Because I’m an ignorant city slicker who thought you might take off early on Saturday?”

He snorted. “You might be a city slicker, but you’re not ignorant, and you’ve lived in Crow Hill long enough to know weekends mean nothing to ranchers.”

He had her there. “I should’ve left a message. I just wasn’t sure you’d get it.”

“Now that’s a legitimate cause for concern because I’m not always one to check.”

Hearing him drawl out the words
legitimate cause
brought a smile to her face, and she pulled her wineglass closer. “What made you check now?”

“I always look at the incoming log in case my dad’s called. He never leaves a message either.” He paused, and she heard the banging of cabinet doors, the clanging of pots and pans, cutlery. “Why do you people do that? Or not do that, I guess, is the question.”

“Usually, I do.” She ran the flat of her index finger over the base of her glass. “But like I said, I wanted to catch you and didn’t want to sweat out the wait, wondering if you’d gotten the message.” She paused, picked up her glass, took a sip. “Or if you’d call me back.”

Another snort hit her ear. Then an even louder banging sound as if he’d slammed a skillet onto the stove. “You thought after yesterday morning I wouldn’t call you back?”

Eyes closed, she remembered the scruff of his beard on her skin and shivered. “When I called, I wasn’t even thinking about yesterday.”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about yesterday.” His voice slid over her, silky and smooth and warm.

Her heart thumped hard, and then a second time, but she held back admitting how often he’d been on her mind. “I actually called because of work.”

“Work can wait. Tell me about the scarves.”

“What?” she asked, her heart tumbling and turning the word breathless.

“Tell me about the scarves.” It was a demand, not a question, and the skin at her nape tingled.

She closed her eyes, swallowed. She supposed his curiosity shouldn’t surprise her. “What about them?”

“Well, I sure as hell don’t want to know where you bought them or how much they cost.”

That had her smiling again. “And here I was all set to give you shopping advice.”

“I want to know why you made me keep my hands to myself for so long.”

An explanation that would take too much time to go into; it had been stressful enough telling her girlfriends about her ex. Telling Boone the full story would add levels no amount of wine would help relieve, and so she glossed over the truth. “I like getting what I want. The scarves make sure I will.”

“You’re talking orgasms,” he said, and when she stayed silent, added, “You could’ve just asked.”

It had happened before, a man promising to show her heaven, then making the trip alone. “Until the fund-raiser, we’d hardly spoken two words to each other. I didn’t know what you’d say.”

“I’m a guy. That should’ve been enough of a clue.”

“Some guys want things to go their way.”

“Some guys are selfish pricks, but I get it. I could’ve been one.” More banging of dishes. “Now you know I’m not. At least most of the time.”

Really. He made it so easy to smile. “So, the reason I called—”

“Fourteen times,” he cut in to say.

“The reason I called fourteen times was to ask if we could get together for an interview.”

“An interview?” he asked after his silence had her swallowing half the wine in her glass.

“For the paper. I’ve been assigned a human interest story on the return of the Dalton Gang to Crow Hill.”

He grunted. “Not sure the type of interest humans around here have in the Dalton Gang is fit for the
Reporter
to print. Not sure it’s the type the boys and I want printed.”

That sounded a lot like a rehash of Arwen’s and Faith’s argument. She gave Boone the same response she’d given them. “Whitey wants a story. Who would you rather have write it? Whitey, me, Clark Howard, or Cicely Warren? Because it’s going to be one of the four of us. And my bias is going to be a little bit different from theirs.”

“Well, that’s a given,” he said, then added a quick, “Hang a sec,” returning after the kitchen faucet came on and went off. “Dax once cut donuts in Clark’s front yard after he told him to stay away from his daughter, so he’s no fan. And Cicely’s hardly any better. She propositioned Casper when he was sixteen.”

“What?” Everly asked, nearly spilling the refill of wine she was pouring.

“He told her he’d rather take it up the ass from one of Rooster Hart’s Charolais bulls than let her get hold of his dick.”

That had her sputtering. “Cicely’s got to be twenty years older than Casper.”

“And probably just as much of a degenerate now as she was then.”

Everly was never going to be able to look at Cicely Warren with a straight face again. “And Whitey? Did one of you ruin his yard or his daughter’s reputation? Because if he came on to you, I do not want to know.”

This time it was Boone laughing, a low rumbling growl that slid into the pit of Everly’s stomach. “Not that I can recall. But Whitey will want to sell as many copies as he can, so he’d be the worst choice. He’d make what dirt he can find sound even dirtier.”

Except she wasn’t sure anything could sound dirtier than Cicely Warren soliciting a teenage Casper Jayne. But she only knew the middle-aged, and unfortunately unattractive, woman now. She hadn’t known her then.

She hadn’t known any of the story’s players then. It was very possible what she found out about Boone might change what was so far her good opinion of him.

The thought did not thrill her. “Does it worry you?”

“What?”

“That I might find out some things you’d rather I not?”

“Whatever’s out there is in the past and can’t be undone. I figure you’ve got some skeletons of your own you might prefer I not know about.”

“I do,” she said, glad to see they were on the same page, and supposing she should brace for her skeletons lifting a hand from the grave.

“I guess we’re even then. Ask me what you will.”

“Thank you.”

“No need,” he said, the sound of food sizzling reaching her ears with the words. “Just making sure you get your info from the horse’s mouth rather than just horses’ asses.”

She flicked a nail over the wine bottle’s label. “Do you think Casper and Dax will be as accommodating?”

“No, but I’m happy to come along when you talk to them, keep them from giving you too hard of a time.”

She’d never had a hero in her corner before, and her heart soared. Too bad she was going to put him on public display now that he was there. “I’ll be fine. I’d rather talk to them without a buffer.”

“The offer’s there. If you should need me. Or just a buffer.”

He was a nice man. “Who’s going to keep
you
from giving me too hard of a time?”

“No one. Because I’m pretty sure hard is the way you like it.”

And she was pretty sure she’d like it any way he wanted to give it to her. “I’ll see you Monday then?”

“Make it noon. I have to stop for lunch anyway. I’ll meet you at the house.”

“Will the others be there?” She didn’t want to arrive prepared for one man if she’d have the chance to talk to all three.

“They’re going to a cattle auction. We’ll have the place to ourselves.”

Just her, and Boone, and all those wide-open spaces. She took a deep breath, and a long swallow of wine. “You’re not going?”

“I’m not a fan of spending more of the ranch’s money than we have to.”

Interesting. “So they’re buying? Not selling?”

“The only thing we have that’s worth selling is, according to Darcy anyhow, some antiques that belonged to Tess.”

“Are you going to sell them?” she asked, sensing a hesitance in his voice.

“We may have to. We did lease rights on a few acres for an oil well going in now.”

“That’s exciting.” Wasn’t it? Black gold. Texas tea.

“It boosted us over a bad hump. But we’ve got a lot more humps and no more guaranteed boosts. Unless we sell the antiques.”

“Why is that a question?” she asked, frowning.

“Selling them? Because they were Tess’s.”

“But they’re yours now.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t you think she’d want you to get what use out of them you could? Even if that use is the cash selling them brings you?”

“Still seems wrong. And disrespectful somehow.” He went silent then, the sounds of dishes and utensils and the refrigerator door opening reaching her ears. “But we’re about out of options.”

“The Daltons meant a lot to you, didn’t they?”

“They meant everything. Listen, my food’s ready here and I’m starving, so why don’t I tell you about them on Monday?”

“Okay. I’ll see you then,” she said, barely stopping herself from adding
I can’t wait
.

Because it was the truth. She couldn’t.

EIGHT

E
VEN MORE THAN
he’d missed his boys the sixteen years he’d spent away from Crow Hill, Boone had missed his mother’s cooking, especially her Sunday pot roast. Knowing it was in the oven at home, carrots buried in the juices beneath it, sometimes potatoes, too—though he preferred his mashed—had made sitting through Pastor Cuellar’s sermon the worst hour of each week.

Things were better now that his Sunday mornings were spent working, and the only time he saw Pastor Cuellar was if they happened to pass in the aisle at Drury Hardware. The pastor took no salary, and used his family money to keep the First Baptist Church building in good repair. Since Boone was the only one of the Dalton Gang still living on the ranch, keeping that house the same fell to him.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the Cuellar fortune. Or even much of the money he himself had made while working as a hand in New Mexico. And as little cash as he had to spend on home maintenance, he had even less time. Meaning he really needed to head back and use the rest of the day to do something about the back porch steps, now that one of the boards on the bottom one had split clean in two.

And it wouldn’t hurt for him to run the mower over the grass growing up through the weeds in the yard. Would make the place look less like it belonged to the neighborhoods in Southwest Crow Hill and more like the homestead Tess had taken so much pride in. ’Course Tess had been gifted with a green thumb, growing okra and corn and squash and tomatoes every year, and keeping the beds in the front of the house filled with flowers she coaxed to blossom no matter the heat.

But before he left town to do either of those things, he needed some answers from the woman beside him.

Standing next to his sister in front of the sink in their parents’ home, drying the clean dishes she handed him, Boone thought back to the time he’d spent with Everly on Friday, and all the things about her he didn’t know. Things he wanted to. Things that he hoped would put the rest into some perspective. Because as it stood, he couldn’t figure out much of what made her tick. Except the sex. And the scarves.

“Do you miss the bank at all?” he asked, thinking he could get at the answers he needed by going in through a side door rather than barging in through the front.

“I miss seeing the people I worked with, and the customers. I don’t miss giving bad news to clients.” Faith rinsed another plate and slid it into his towel-covered hand. “And I don’t miss pantyhose and pumps. I don’t miss those
at
all.”

It was strange seeing his sister around town in knee pants or capris or whatever they were called, and frilly summer blouses, even T-shirts, instead of the suits she’d worn to the bank for years. “You’re not bored? Not having something to do all day?”

“I have a lot to do all day. I just do it at the house, not at the bank.” She reached for the sprayer, aimed the water at a spot of dried potato. The food went down the disposal before she dunked the plate in the sink of soap bubbles. Why she didn’t just use the dishwasher instead of putting herself through this every week . . . “You’ll have to come by and see what I’ve done to the third floor.”

That had been the floor where Casper’s bedroom had been. The one, Boone had learned from a much more vulnerable Faith than this one, where the other man, as a kid, had stuffed balls of newspaper into holes in the ceiling to keep spiders from dropping down onto his bed. “Thought you might be sealing it off.”

“You thought wrong. I’m gutting the floor and turning it into a home theater for Clay and Casper and all their movies. And for Clay’s video games. It’s going to be amazing.”

Now the nightmares would be on big screens instead of in Casper’s head. “Good for you. I like that you still look out for him. Casper. I think he’ll need that the rest of his life.”

“I like it, too. And I think so, too.” She used her sponge like a weapon against the gravy burned on the bottom of a saucepan. “Though it’s not the same sort of looking out our folks did when he was in school.”

“I don’t need to hear about your sex life.”

“I’m not talking about sex. Jesus, Boone. Relationships are more than sex. You, better than any man I know, should get that.”

Because of the example their parents had set. Because they’d stuck together through all the hell he and his sister had put them through. “You’re good for him. You’ve made him a good home.”

“Doing that’s a lot more fun, and much more satisfying, than handling the ranch’s accounts, and telling you no every time you need money.”

“So you don’t miss it at all?”

Frowning, she looked over, blowing a wisp of hair away from the corner of her mouth. “Why are you asking me about missing the bank?”

“No reason,” he said, grabbing for the plate she hadn’t finished rinsing.

She held tight, even with wet hands. “Yes reason. Usually after Sunday supper you’re parked in front of the TV watching football with Daddy and Casper and Clay.”

Today he’d sent his mother in his place. She loved football more than he did anyway, even if he’d played all four years of high school. And she loved having a fifteen-year-old nearly adopted grandson to spoil. Clay had no idea how lucky he was. Except he did.

“Fine.” He didn’t have time for subterfuge anyway. He had chores and animals waiting. “I want to know about Everly Grant. Why she’s here. In Crow Hill.”

“Everly is why you’re asking me about the bank?” she asked as she got back to the dishes.

“I talked to her at the fund-raiser. We danced. That’s all.” But it wasn’t all, and with this being his sister, by the end of this conversation, she’d know it, too. “I’m curious.”

“You’re curious because you didn’t learn anything when you spent the night in her bed?”

Calf nuts on a cracker.
Women. “She tell you that?”

Faith nodded. “Friday at lunch. Said you were drunk, she drove you home, she slept on the couch.”

“That’s pretty much what happened.” And since it looked like that was all Everly had said, he wasn’t saying anything more. “Tell me about her.”

“Not much to tell,” she said, starting in on the silverware. “We were in school together. She came to visit a few years ago, loved it, and got the job at the
Reporter.
”

“That’s a bunch of crap. No one in their right mind chooses to live in Crow Hill.”

“You did. Dax and Casper did.”

“That’s different. We grew up here. We inherited the ranch. We had a reason.”

She thought a minute, then argued. “I chose to live here. Arwen chose to live here. She could’ve left anytime.”

“Not the same. You both grew up here, too. You came back because of the folks.” And because of things she’d been through they didn’t talk about. “Name me one other person who lives here on purpose. Someone who didn’t grow up here. Someone who didn’t take over their folks’ business, like Josh Lasko or Lizzie Nathan. Everyone we know was born here and stayed. Except Everly.”

“Greg Barrett.”

“He doesn’t count. He’s related to the Campbells.”

She took another thoughtful break to scrub a really long carving knife. “Kendall Sheppard. She didn’t come for a job. She’s not related to anyone. She didn’t grow up here. She moved here and opened her own business.”

He hadn’t thought of Kendall Sheppard, though her opening a bookstore in a place like Crow Hill also didn’t make a lot of sense. “She doesn’t count either.”

“Why?”

“Just answer me.”

“Why?”

Did everything have to be such a big deal? “Because I want to know what the hell Everly’s doing living here.”

“Why does it matter . . . ? Wait,” she said, turning to him, giving him that look he hated. That know-it-all, little-sister-got-something-on-her-big-brother look. “She didn’t sleep on the couch, did she?”

“Yeah. She did,” he said, and left it at that.

“Then what’s going on here? What aren’t you telling me?”

He jerked the knife out of her hand to dry it. “She kept my drunk ass from driving. That’s all.”

“I’ve never known your drunk ass to drive. You always sleep it off in your truck.”

He did, but hadn’t thought it necessary to tell Everly that. “Help me out here, Faith. I want to know what I’m up against.”

“You mean besides what you’ve already been up against?” she asked, one dark brow rising.

“Not funny.”

“Oh, it’s funny. Funny in the same way you tried to keep me and Casper apart.”

“That was in high school.”

She sputtered. “Are you saying you didn’t invoke the no-sisters rule once you three were back on the ranch?”

“Only because I wasn’t sure if Casper was serious. But this isn’t the same. Everly and I are just . . .”

“Just what, Boone?” She turned to him, shoved a soapy fist to her hip before realizing what she’d done. “Crap,” she said, grabbing his towel and drying the blouse she’d worn to church. “What are you and Everly exactly? Because she’s my friend—”

“And I’m your brother—”

“—and I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“I’m not—”

“Uh-uh. Save it. You won’t know if you’re going to hurt her until it’s too late. And she’s been hurt enough.”

That’s what he’d been afraid of. “So, I shouldn’t see her again.”

“You don’t think not seeing her again won’t hurt her?

“Criminy, Faith. Do I or don’t I?”

“That’s up to you,” she said, turning back to the dishes with a shrug. “Just make sure you do the right thing.”

As long as the right thing was drowning himself in the sink? “Well, she’s coming out to the ranch tomorrow so I’ll have to see her then.”

“The ranch? Why would she come to the ranch?”

“An interview, or some bullshit. Her editor wants her to do a human interest story on the Dalton Gang coming back to Crow Hill.”

“Oh, yeah. She mentioned the assignment at lunch on Friday. Strange the paper would want to do something now. You’ve all been back for months.”

“Don’t look at me. All I know is that I’m first up, then she’ll want to talk to Dax and Casper.”

“Hmm.”

The idea of Faith trying to rein in Casper, or of Arwen doing the same to Dax, made him laugh. He didn’t have to be reined. He knew how to keep his mouth shut. And Faith knew that better than anyone. “I won’t bug her about it if you tell me what she’s really doing here.”

“Everly being here is Everly’s business. If you want to know what happened, you’ll have to get the story from her.”

“So something did happen.”

“Something always
happens
, Boone. Dave and Tess dying brought you back here. Dax and Casper, too. I came back because of, well, everything that happened at school. Arwen stayed because of what happened with her father. It’s called life. And if Everly decides to make you a part of hers, then I imagine she’ll tell you everything you need to know. Until then . . .” She made a zipping motion across her lips, threw the imaginary key into the dishwater.

Boone rolled his eyes, then stuck his hand in the sink and went fishing. Faith laughed so loud and so hard, Casper came running from the other room, followed by Clay and their folks.

With their audience looking on, Faith wrapped her arms around Boone’s neck and hugged him, smacking a big kiss on his cheek, before pulling the stopper out of the sink and letting the answers he wanted go down the drain.