“Okay.” Diego squatted down by his bear and began to stroke it as if to comfort the drowned stuffed animal. “How long does it take to become Texans?” A fat tear dropped on the bear. Then another.
“Oh, sweetie.” Cruz also bent down and hugged the child, stroking his head while a few more tears fell.
Axel pushed down the impulse to pull them both into his arms.
Not mine.
Not his woman.
Not his child.
Not his problem.
“You become a Texan the minute you drive across the state line intending to stay,” Axel shocked himself by speaking up.
“Really? I’m already a Texan?” Diego asked, his blue eyes swimming under water. Blue, not black like Cruz’s. His gut churned and doubt flickered again.
“Why not? We can run your bear through the carwash a couple of times, and I have a power washer on the ranch.”
“You have a ranch? A real ranch?” Diego’s awe was tangible. “So you are a real cowboy.”
“And a Texan my whole life. Your mom is right. We need to start problem solving.”
Diego stood up. “Okay.” He looked ready for action. If only August had listened to him like that. Aurik had, except when it had mattered the most.
Cruz also stood, her arms crossed, her gaze narrowed. Nope. She wasn’t going to fall in with any plan he concocted.
“Think you can get your bear into the back of my truck?”
“Yes, sir.” Diego struggled to lift the large, unwieldy sodden animal.
Cruz went to help.
“I can do it,” Diego said, his face set in determined lines. He half-lifted and half-dragged the bear toward the gate. “I’m gonna be a Texan.”
“That’s helpful,” Cruz said. “Now it will get even filthier.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“Thanks for the ride, here, Axel, but I’m sure you have plenty to do. My car will be freed up soon, no doubt, and we can hose off the bear, although I have a lot more pressing things to do than wash a massive stuffed animal,” she said looking into the small studio that would work fine for an office but as a home for two people for two months, not really.
Cruz deserved better.
“Call the landlord,” Axel said thinking of all the work that needed to get done, but realizing that expecting Bill Clemmens to step up and hire a crew to help her and then pay for the damage, was highly unlikely. He’d also have to hire a plumber and then a restoration crew to dry out the house and repair the damage—it would likely take until the next millennium…if he did it at all.
“He’s on the list,” Cruz said. “But first, I’ll move the boxes and furniture from the studio and empty out what I can from Shell’s house.”
“So, you’re going to put all your belongings on the curb?”
Most everything would have to be thrown away. What a way to start off in a new town. Or in a new marriage.
Not his problem.
“Yup,” Cruz said, looking at her sandals and then, with a shrug, entering the studio.
He followed her in.
“Really, Axel, I’ve got this.” She turned around and blocked him, splaying both hands on his chest as if that would stop him if he really wanted to get through. “This is not your problem,” she said, unconsciously echoing his thoughts. “And it’s not that big of a deal—most of our stuff is still in storage anyway. This isn’t a permanent stop for us.”
That felt like a slap.
“I need to find a storage unit, get my car, start loading it up, then find a hotel or a short-term rental. I’ll need to tell Shell, but I hate to ruin their honeymoon. Oh, and I’ll call the landlord. And find a laundromat.” She spoke under her breath, as if making a list.
Axel was already texting his foreman to send at least two hands to the house immediately. They’d be there within thirty minutes.
Cruz grabbed two boxes that were on top of the galley kitchen counter so they weren’t wet and carried them past him, as if he wasn’t there.
Sometimes her fierce independence just didn’t make sense to him. He grabbed two boxes that had been stacked on the floor. The bottom one was fairly soaked and fell apart as he lifted.
He stood there, only the top box in his arms, and looked at the litter of lacy bras and underthings—all sopping wet.
Cruz shoved at him. “I told you, I’ve got this.”
Her face was bright red.
He didn’t recognize any of the lingerie, which made sense because it had been a long time, but that meant she’d bought the colorful, lacy items with someone else in mind. It shouldn’t burn. But it did.
“I can help you gather those up, and we can put them in another box. They should come clean in the laundry,” he said, just to piss her off.
It worked.
“Don’t you dare.”
He shocked himself by laughing.
“That is not funny!” She was bright red. Embarrassed. It amazed him that something as basic as underwear—although sexy and pretty—would embarrass her.
“It kind of is,” he said.
“Such a man.”
“That I am,” he agreed. She looked at him a little helplessly, as if she didn’t quite know what to do with him. That had never been a problem in the past.
“You don’t have to do this.” He jerked his head at the boxes and scattered furniture. “I’ve got two ranch hands coming with a trailer. They can knock this task out in an hour.”
“Axel, why? I’m sure your hands have plenty to do.”
“They do. I pay them to work and today they’re working here.”
“Axel.”
“Just let it go, Cruz. Accept the help graciously. Say thank you, Axel.”
“Axel…” She was still in protest mode.
Diego dodged around them and came into the now crowded space. “I can’t lift bear. He’s too fat with water. Ew! Mom!” He picked up one of her purple lacy thongs and waved it in front of her like a flag. “Your underwear is showing.”
She snatched it.
Axel laughed. “Now admit it,” he whispered as he walked past her with the other two boxes that were just damp. He’d stack those at the curb for Ben and Devin to load into the trailer. “It’s funny.”
What he found next in the studio did not amuse him.
It was a high-topped bistro-style table that he’d made for her, by hand, using oak from a felled tree at his ranch and piece of Brazilian heartwood he’d been saving. It had been a Valentine’s present for her. He’d made her two matching chairs for her birthday the same year. The chairs’ legs were swollen and water stained and the table had tipped over so that one part of the jigsaw heart he’d inlaid in the table top was distorted—and ruined.
Pretty damn symbolic.
But she’d kept the table. Even as a married woman. She’d sat at it with her husband and eaten a meal she’d prepared for another man.
“Oh,” Cruz breathed when he brought out the table, barely resisting the urge to drag it out by the base. The hand-written message in Sharpie on the bottom was still clear.
Your heart will forever be my unsolved puzzle.
That hadn’t been erased by time or the flood.
What an idiot he’d been in retrospect. And definitely not a poet. What had her husband made of that? Had Cruz even remembered it was there?
Had she noticed that he’d seen it? Axel felt completely exposed.
“No. Not my table.”
The pain in her voice made it worse.
The two stool chairs that he had made and hand-painted for her were in even worse shape.
“Most of what’s in there might as well go to the junk pile,” he said, hating the memories she was stirring up, hating the return of the feelings he’d kept tamped down for so long that he’d practically forgotten he had any.
This was her fault. For leaving and so easily making a life without him.
His fault, for still caring.
And August’s fau
lt, for overpaying for a building and buying it out from under Bill Clemmens’s nose, and calling his damned winery—with its grapes planted on a century-and-a-half-old cattle ranch—Verflucht to begin with.
“No way are you going to throw my table away. It’s a piece of art.”
It was a damaged piece of foolishness.
A broken dream.
“It can be saved,” she insisted.
“Why’d you keep it?” he demanded.
“You made it,” she said, as if that were obvious.
“Years ago. Might as well throw it away, now.”
“You have no right.” Cruz chased after him. “I mean it, Axel.” She made a weird sound as she skidded in the mud, but it didn’t slow her down much. She kept after him.
“I love that table. It can be saved.”
Her passion only pissed him off further.
“Why bother?” He whirled on her, holding the table between them like a shield. “You can just toss it away. Buy a new one today.”
Her breaths came in sexy little puffs.
“That table is special.” She glared at him. “It holds a lot of memories.”
He rocked back on his heels, not sure if she meant with him or her husband.
“And it’s mine.”
“It’s destroyed.”
Like them.
Why had she kept it, when she’d thrown him away?
“It can be repaired,” she insisted.
He didn’t want to read anything into that. He didn’t want to hope. He didn’t want to be here, but he couldn’t make himself leave.
He wanted to hurl the table across the yard—rejecting Cruz, their past and the hold she still apparently had over him. Instead he stalked around to the front of the house, cursing under his breath.
Diego was pressed up against his huge bear ignoring the stink, the stains and the sodden fabric.
“Can my bear be saved?” Diego asked.
Axel didn’t want to lie. He planned to run his truck through a car wash a couple of times with the bear in the back and see what happened. “We’ll give it our best try,” he said, lifting the bear into the back of the truck.
“It was a present from my dad,” Diego confided, walking back to the house and trying to match his steps to Axel’s. “He’s dead.”
Axel faltered. His heart squeezed, and he jammed his hands in his pockets. His own insensitivity astonished and shamed him. He’d been feeling jealous of a dead man. He’d been acting self-righteous and as if he was the wounded one, when Cruz had lost her husband and Diego his father.
He knew all too well what that was like—how the grieving never ended. It just went on and on, changing form and intensity but never fading completely.
“We’ll get Bear fixed up,” he promised Cruz’s child. It was the least he could do.
She’d had her reasons for replacing him so quickly. And he didn’t have the right to punish or question her about her choices. She’d been right all along. She wasn’t his business anymore.
Two hours later, the studio and the house were empty. One load had already been taken to a landfill—after they’d taken pictures of the ruined items—and another load had been trucked to one of his barns. The hands had returned, and they nearly had all the remaining salvageable items loaded in the trailer.
“Bring all the clothes to the workroom,” Axel said. “We’ll run them through the wash a couple of times.”
“With some color-safe bleach.” One of his youngest hands, Ben, wrinkled his nose. “Good luck with that boss.”
He broke off as Cruz hurried out of the house. Bill Clemmens had finally arrived.
“I swear he has a drone spying on anyone he needs to work with, waiting until everything is done before swooping in to grab the credit, right Devin?” Ben nudged the younger, blond ranch hand who was still staring at Cruz in a bit of a daze.
Axel couldn’t blame him, not really when she bounded out, long legs in skinny jeans and wearing a white T-shirt that hugged her slim curves and made him imagine he could see the darker outline of her perfect, sweet nipples.
“Hey. Eyes up,” he warned softly and Devin flushed a dull red and ducked his head. “Sorry, boss.”
Axel wasn’t exactly innocent of staring today so he kept his mouth shut.
Bill climbed out of his battered truck, jacked up his pants and spit on the ground. He watched Cruz, like a hunter would prey, as she sauntered toward him, with her sexy, athletic walk.
Ah hell no.
“Bill,” he said coldly, heading Bill off before Cruz joined him.
“Axel.” Bill was even less enthused to see him. “What are you and your boys doing here?”
“Doing your job.”
Bill shoved his hat back and then jammed it low on his head again, his expression mean.
“No one asked you to do that,” he said. “Seems like breaking and entering to me.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Clemmens.” Cruz glared at Axel before stepping in front of him, clearly trying to de-escalate the situation. Bill and he rarely parted without Bill threatening some sort of action—usually legal.
But he let her play her hand. By the way she flicked her loose and messy braid over her shoulder where it slapped against his chest, he could tell she wanted him to back off.
Too. Damn. Bad.
Bill Clemmens was not to be trusted. He, his father and his grandfather had contested boundaries, water rights and pretty much anything else they could concoct. They’d taken the Wolf family to court for damaged property, from cattle that “wandered” onto their land. The man didn’t maintain his fences, and he wasn’t above trying to rustle cattle. Bill Clemmens was bad news as a neighbor and probably even worse as a landlord.
To her credit, Cruz held on to her temper while Bill passed the blame, made excuses, drew things out and kept dropping his eyes to her chest. Eventually he made a vague promise about getting the insurance company out ‘pronto,’ and then getting some contractor bids.
He’d refused to be pinned down to a timetable for repairs.
“I need a place for me and my son to live,” Cruz said. Axel had the urge to plant his fist between Bill’s eyes at the way they lit with lustful interest. “So, sooner’s better than later.”
“I’ll get you fixed up, little lady.” Then he walked back to his truck.
Sounded like more of a threat than a promise, and Axel relaxed a little because Cruz was nobody’s dummy.
“Loathsome man,” Cruz muttered, carrying the last load to the trailer.
“I told you. But you wanted to handle it your way.”
“I’m all grown up—” She held her arms wide, cocked her hip and made a face at him. “And I don’t need a big hunk of man making decisions for me.” She plunked the box down.
“Is that the last of it?” Devin asked him.
“Yes,” Cruz said. “Thank you so much, Devin and Ben, for your help today. I’d like to pay you,” she said, reaching into her wallet.
“Ma’am.” Devin turned bright red and then he and Ben climbed in the ranch truck. “Boss.”
“Wait, I haven’t given you the address of the storage place.” Cruz grabbed her phone from her back pocket. “I left a voice mail, but they haven’t called me back yet.”
“We have the address, ma’am.” Devin slammed the door, giving Axel one last look before he and Ben took off back to the ranch.
“How could they know? Oh. There’s probably just the one storage facility in town. But I don’t have a unit number yet.”
Because he’d canceled her request. There’d been no point—he had room to store her things. And he’d take better care of drying them out. But if he told her that, she’d be pissed, and ask him why again, and he wasn’t prepared to answer. Because he didn’t know.
She blew out a breath and then she moistened her lip. “Thank you for your help, Axel,” she said quickly. “I know I seemed ungrateful. It’s just…been a challenging day, and I need to figure out living accommodati
ons for me and Diego since my orientation is Monday. So, I’ve got lots on my plate. But I was rude, and I do appreciate your help,” she said quickly. “You don’t need to give us a ride back to town. It’s not far. Diego and I can walk. Mr. Clemmens mentioned that he had another property that is…”
“A dump,” Axel completed.
“Furnished, is what he said.” She put her hands on her hips. “You don’t need to—” she waved her hand at him “—take over or help or whatever manly thing you’re doing because we have a history.”
He’d been heavy-handed because he’d been jealous.
And something else he didn’t want to examine too closely with her so near. But he was the one who needed to apologize. Not her.
“I’m sorry about your husband, Cruz. It must be so difficult for you and your son.”
“What?” Cruz blew out a harsh breath, and her thumb spun the filigree gold band that was loose on her finger.
Even though the man was dead, it pissed Axel off that her husband hadn’t even bought Cruz a diamond. Axel had bought her an oval diamond in a platinum setting with small diamonds circling the stone and then others inlaid in the band. He’d wanted something that was enduring and elegant and could be seen across the room.
He’d been an arrogant ass.
No surprise there.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said. “But I was never married.”
Axel couldn’t quite seem to absorb the words. She’d never married. The spurt of happiness at that statement was totally uncalled for. And then another question slammed into his brain.
“But…”
“Please, Axel.” Cruz looked at him, her dark eyes serious. “Can we please not talk about this now? I’m…” She broke off and looked around the damaged yard and the damaged house.
It was the first time he could remember she’d ever expressed any vulnerability—or fear, nerves, sorrow or exhaustion.
“The ring was my grandmother’s. It’s really the only family heirloom I have, and with Diego, it just made it…you know…easier to avoid a lot of…”
“Let’s get your car,” he said abruptly, his mind in turmoil.
Chapter Five
A Son for the Texas Cowboy Page 6