by Vanessa Vale
My heart skipped a beat, then another. My palms began to sweat. I glanced out the cracked windshield and didn’t see the acres of growing alfalfa or the mountains in the distance. All I saw was Huck Manning, five years ago, coming back to The Bend with a baby. His baby.
The baby that proved he’d moved on and hadn’t wanted me.
Huck Manning wasn’t Claire’s father. He hadn’t dumped me and gone on to make a baby with a woman faster than someone changed their underwear.
He’d made one with me, but—
“Everything okay?” Graham asked, making me jump. I set the paper beside me.
I’d been so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t heard him approach.
Hastily I picked up the small pile and grabbed the open briefcase off the floor of the passenger side. “Yeah, these were all over and in my way.” I shoved them in, except for the one letter about Huck, and snapped the lid down. Reaching across the steering wheel, I handed the briefcase to Graham through the open door. “Here. I’m sure Kale’s going to want this.”
He took it from me. “I’ll see that he gets it. Thanks.”
With the truck ready to be loaded, I hopped out and folded the letter, shoving it into the back pocket of my jeans. We walked to the tow truck together. As I readied the winch cable, all I could think about was what I’d just learned.
Huck and I had dated after graduation and spent the summer together, practically inseparable. God, it had been intense, and I’d fallen in love with him in a matter of days. Maybe on our first date. I’d given him my virginity the week before I was to leave for college.
The next day he’d come to the house and told me it was over. I’d sat there as he’d told me it wasn’t going to work. My dad had stood in the doorway and watched. His face had been grim as usual. He’d never been shy in how he felt about Huck Manning. While I’d been heartbroken, my dad had consoled me by telling me I was better than a loser like Huck, that he’d never amount to anything, that he’d drag me down.
I hadn’t believed any of it, but Huck hadn’t changed his mind. I’d gone off to college and tried to heal my broken heart. Until I found out I was pregnant. Until a short while later I’d miscarried.
I’d heard Huck had moved to Helena to go to the police academy, but he’d never contacted me, so I never told him about the baby we’d made. The loss of him and the miscarriage had made that first year horrible. But I’d persevered. College was what I’d wanted. What my father had always planned for me. To amount to more, although by then all I’d wanted was the life Huck and I had begun to plan. That was never going to be.
When school ended for the year, I’d returned to The Bend for the summer. Huck had too. With a baby. With little Claire.
Since I was good with numbers, I’d done the math, figured he’d gone from taking my virginity in the back of his truck to another woman’s bed within a month. Proven we were truly finished.
It had taken years to get over him. The way I was reacting to this news, I wasn’t past him at all.
He’d returned to The Bend and worked as a deputy, raising Claire on his own. He had Alice, the awesome Manning housekeeper, and two brothers to help, but never once reached out to me. I’d had to hear all the gossip about it, the mystery of who the mother was. I’d had to listen to all the times my dad told me how much better off I was without him. How Claire had proved Huck Manning was a deadbeat, that he’d have ruined my life.
But now? Kale’s papers? Claire wasn’t Huck’s baby. Why had he lied? Why had he let me believe she was his, that he’d slept with another woman so soon after me? That I’d meant so little to him that he’d found another. That he’d gotten her pregnant.
I was so angry as I let out the cable on the winch. Graham grabbed the end and went to hook it beneath the front of Kale’s pickup.
I willed the tears away. I’d grieved not only the end of our relationship but the baby I’d thought we’d made in love. Had to see Claire Manning and know the child we’d created would have been exactly her age. That she could have been ours. Together.
I had to confront Huck. I had to know the truth. But first I was going to get even. How dare he lie to me about something like that! How dare he think so little of me. He’d turned his life around, proving to the entire town he was a stand-up guy. A leader in the community who gave back.
It had been six years. I’d thought I was done with him. If I was, I wouldn’t be losing my shit over the paperwork. But no. It cut deep. So deep.
I flipped the lever to tilt the truck bed.
“Think I should wear a blue shirt or a green one tonight?” Graham asked, stirring me from my thoughts once again.
“Green,” I told him, pushing the button for the winch and watching as the cable went taut and slowly began to pull the truck across the field. I took a deep breath, let it out. Tried to calm down, but my heart was practically beating out of my chest. “With that hair, the women are going to go wild.”
He took off his hat and watched as Kale’s truck slid into position on the flatbed. I stopped the winch, then lowered the bed back down so it was flat.
I needed to talk to Huck. Now. I stilled, then smiled. I knew a way to do just that. I’d get the answers I wanted. And then some.
4
HUCK
* * *
Friday night
* * *
Thatcher and I were the only two bachelors left to be auctioned off. Sawyer had just gone. I leaned against the wall backstage as he was bid on, not wanting to know how he fared. It was like waiting for our turn for the guillotine.
Alice had volunteered us, so it wasn’t like we could duck out from the event now by taking the nearest emergency exit. She’d kill us and with a dull knife. In our sleep. The last person I wanted mad at me was Alice. She’d been the Manning Ranch housekeeper longer than I’d been alive and mother hen for me and my brothers since my parents had died.
I was first to admit that had been a hellish job. I’d been a punk when I was a kid, but after my parents’ plane had crashed, I’d turned into a full-fledged asshole. For years.
I sighed, because I knew the moment I’d turned my shit around. When Sarah O’Banyon’s dad had forced me to walk away. When he’d said I wasn’t good enough for his daughter. Never had been, never would be.
It seemed I wasn’t good enough for not just Sarah, but for any woman. I hadn’t found one who’d stuck. Hell, who I’d wanted to stick. I hadn’t taken one to the ranch or to meet Claire. Sure, I’d been able to separate a woman from her panties on occasion. That wasn’t an issue, and definitely not one I shared with Alice. The family housekeeper wanted the three of us to settle down, to marry, not continue with random one-night stands.
Casual sex was one thing, but marriage? That was something else entirely. Something I’d wanted once. With Sarah. And since that was a dead fucking end, it was why I was here now. Waiting to be auctioned off to the highest bidding woman since I couldn’t get one on my own. I’d probably make five dollars for the charity tonight.
I wanted forever, but no doubt get a coffee date at the new place on Main with Miss Turnbuckle, the town’s librarian. The one who’d looked eighty when I was a kid.
“Fuck,” I grumbled to myself. I remembered how I’d felt for Sarah, the way she’d looked at me when I took her for the first time in the back of my pickup. How I’d loved her, wanted to worship every inch of her. Back then I’d gone from thinking only of myself to my sole goal in life being to make her happy.
The crowd of women in the audience screamed and clapped louder than ever. Something was happening, but it didn’t sound like anyone needed law enforcement’s intervention. Thatcher went over to the curtain that kept the backstage area from view and peeked out. I moved to stand beside him to see what the fuck was going on.
I caught a glimpse of Sawyer striding out of the auditorium, a woman tossed over his shoulder. I couldn’t see who it was, but she had red hair. Lots of it.
Thatcher stepped back, grinned. “
I didn’t think Sawyer had it in him.”
I took off my Stetson, ran a hand over my hair. Unbelievable. Sawyer wanted a woman enough to carry her from the auction. “Me either.”
Sawyer was the serious one of the three of us. It was definitely because he was the oldest. He’d felt he had to take care of us since our parents died. Hell, he took care of everyone. That was why he was fire chief.
I took the other chief role in town. My reasons hadn’t been so altruistic. My goal hadn’t been to help other people when I’d come back from the academy and taken a deputy position. It had been to help me. To get Sarah to see me as worthy.
Five years in and even taking up the chief role, that hadn’t happened.
Reverend Abernathy popped his head around the curtain. He was smiling and seemed quite pleased with himself. “Your brother had the highest bid of the night. Five hundred dollars!”
“Holy sh—” Thatcher said, then cut himself off and offered a shameful smile. “Sorry, Reverend.”
The man held up his hand. “I am surprised as well. The money is for a good cause; therefore I think God would have to agree with you. This time, especially since you did make the shit holy.” He gave Thatcher a pointed look, then grinned again. “Who’s next?”
I looked to my brother. Even though he was an inch taller, he was still my little brother. Since he was the sole carrottop in the family for generations, I’d always teased him that he’d been adopted. The childhood teasing should have kept him up at night with doubt of his DNA, but everything rolled right off him. Even now he was the easygoing one.
“I’ll go,” I offered. No way in fuck was I going to stand back here all by myself. I’d feel like the last picked in middle school gym. If I was going to get back in the saddle, now was the fucking time.
The reverend nodded, then disappeared.
“Hope Miss Turnbuckle wins you,” he said.
I tilted my chin and narrowed my eyes. “Why’s that?”
“Then she won’t bid on me.”
I frowned, spun on my booted heel, and went out onstage when the minister introduced me. If anyone thought it strange a man of God was selling men to a crowd full of women, no one said. Especially not the crowd of over a hundred women.
I heard a few catcalls, some whistling.
“Ladies, it’s time to bid on the date with the chief of police!”
Clapping ensued and someone shouted, “Will he bring the handcuffs?”
I pasted a smile on my face and rolled my eyes. I hadn’t heard that one before… this week.
I was all for a little play in bed, but I was the aggressor. I was the one who put the cuffs on. Took charge and made a woman beg for release. And I didn’t mean from the cuffs.
“Shall we start at fifty dollars?”
I scanned the crowd, the exit points, my usual survey of the room since it was my job to ensure everyone was safe.
“Five hundred dollars!”
I didn’t even process what had been shouted until gasps and whispers spread across the room.
Reverend Abernathy chuckled. “I think I heard a lady say five hundred dollars?”
In the center of the room, a woman rose from one of the many round tables. “Five hundred dollars,” she called again. This time I didn’t take notice of anything but her.
Sarah O’Banyon. Petite, blonde. A hundred pounds soaking wet. Her blue eyes held mine. Her chin was raised in defiance.
I remembered every inch of this woman. The way her mouth turned up, the little dimple by her elbow, the small mole on the inside of her right thigh. The pale hair that framed her pink pussy.
I’d rarely seen her around town. Once in the grocery store, once on a call when her father had been down with the flu and needed someone to tow a car that had slid off the road. She was older now, not nineteen any longer. She’d filled out some, her breasts a little fuller, her hips a little wider.
Yet in the six years since I’d been with her last, in the back of my pickup under a starry sky, she’d never once looked me in the eye.
Until now.
Now she wouldn’t look away.
She’d bid a shit ton of money. Hadn’t even waited for the numbers to rise.
She knew what she wanted.
Me.
Yet I had no idea why. Why now?
Everyone else in the room knew it too. Anyone over the age of twenty most likely knew our history, and they had front-row seats for the latest bit of town gossip.
“Sold!” the reverend called, then laughed. When the clapping quieted down, he continued. “I don’t think, ladies, that I should keep a woman from what she wants.”
For once I was in complete agreement with the man of God. If Sarah O’Banyon wanted me, I was all fucking hers.
I didn’t even nod at the reverend. Alice could scold me for it later. I didn’t look away from Sarah, maybe afraid she’d disappear if I did, and hopped from the stage. Skirting around the tables, I made my way to stand in front of her. I took off my hat, dipped my chin so I could keep looking into those eyes as pale as mine.
“Is Reverend Abernathy right, baby girl? You want me?”
Her cheeks flushed, and she swallowed hard. “Yes.”
That one word. Fuck, that one word was a gateway to everything.
Yes, I want you to finally make me yours.
Yes, I want to be with you always.
Yes, I love you, Huckleberry Manning.
I’d heard all those yeses from her. Remembered every single one. That one word was the key to my heart. I had no idea why Sarah had bid on me now, why she was looking at me like she had all those years ago, but this time, if I let her in, all she’d find was that my heart was broken.
And yet I was eager for her. For this and whatever was going to happen next. As I took her hand and led her out of the auditorium, I knew I wasn’t going to be the same again. I wasn’t sure if that was going to save me or destroy me.
Either way, she was mine. This time I wasn’t fucking letting her go.
5
HUCK
* * *
An hour later
* * *
What the fuck? I stared at my closed bedroom door. Sarah had just gotten dressed, covered up that gorgeous womanly body, and left me. After she’d dropped a fucking bombshell. I glanced down at the paper on my chest, but I couldn’t read it. The handcuffs rattled as I yanked on them, but there was no give.
“Sarah!” I called, then snapped my mouth shut, grinding my molars together.
I still had her taste on my tongue, her sticky essence on my chin. I was aching to sink into her, my dick hard and throbbing against my lower belly. I’d almost busted a nut when her dress had slipped to the floor. Fuck, the sight of her in that pretty lingerie and soft, silky skin was something I’d always remember. The fact that she’d let me get beneath her dress meant she’d wanted me. I’d never touch her otherwise. That was why I’d stayed away all this time. She hadn’t wanted me. If she had, she’d have come to me.
She had, but after six years.
Sarah O’Banyon was my every fantasy come to life. Had been since she turned eighteen. I’d wanted her all those years ago, and I still wanted her now. I hadn’t been celibate since, but sex had been a release. To blow off some steam. Nothing more. Sarah’d had my heart once, and it had been destroyed.
I battled often with how I’d handled her dad. I should’ve told him to fuck off, then carry Sarah away on the back of my horse like some kind of sappy western. But he’d threatened to not only take away her college fund but disown her. He was an asshole, but I wouldn’t risk Sarah’s happiness for anything. So I’d stayed away.
I listened. The house was completely quiet. The crickets chirping through the open window were all I could hear.
She wasn’t coming back. The breeze did nothing to cool me down. My jeans were open, and my dick was out, hard and dripping pre-cum. I was handcuffed to the fucking headboard. The only person in the house was Alice—Claire was spending th
e night with one of her friends so all of us could attend the auction—and she was the dead-last person I wanted to come to my rescue.
It was one thing for everyone to learn about how Delilah had snuck through Sawyer’s bedroom window all those years ago, but this? Now? I was thirty-two years old. No one needed to know I gotten hard being restrained.
Hell, I hadn’t known I liked it until Sarah, in little scraps of lace and silk, dangled my cuffs from her finger.
“Fuck!” I growled, this time a hell of a lot softer.
She’d planned this. The seduction? Fake.
No. It hadn’t been fake. She’d been dripping wet. Eager. She’d rolled her hips over my face as I ate her out. She’d come, and hard.
No fucking way she’d faked that.
She’d taken what she wanted, then left behind what she’d intended.
A hard dick and the paper on my chest.
Claire’s not biologically yours.
She wasn’t. I remembered the looks around town when I’d brought her home. The whispers. Of course Huck Manning had knocked someone up. He was never going to amount to anything, especially when he had a child out of wedlock and who knew what had happened with the mother. They wouldn’t have believed the truth. They believed their own truth.
They hadn’t deserved to know what really happened. How I’d saved Claire from being raised by a horrible mother.
Outside of my family, the only person I’d wanted to tell never once looked me up. I’d stupidly hoped she might. It hadn’t mattered that I’d turned my life around, raised a girl I was fucking proud of. I was just the fuckup everyone said.
Years went by. The last person I’d thought to bid on me at the auction was Sarah O’Banyon. When she’d stood up in the crowd, I’d been stunned. Immediately I’d wondered… why? We hadn’t said much after I tugged her out of the packed auditorium and to my truck. All she’d said was, “Take me home.”
And I had.
Only three words and my dick had gone instantly hard. There had been a moment when I’d had clarity, when I’d stopped and told her we had to talk. We had too much unsaid between us, but she’d shut that down. She’d even said, “No talking.”