Bounty (Colorado Mountain #7)

by Kristen Ashley

  “And if I went for it, where would you be?” I asked.

  He shot me another glance before he asked back, “Where would I be?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “No, babe, where would I be?” he asked again, but it was a statement as much as a question.

  I just didn’t know what he was stating.

  “Yes, Deke, that’s what I want to know. Where would you be?”

  It was more than a glance, he gave me a full look before he shifted his attention back to the road and put on his indicator to turn left on County Road 18.

  He did this saying, “With you.”

  I gripped his hand so tight I felt his bones dig into the pads of my fingers.

  “If…if…” I swallowed and forced myself to finish. “If something like that happens, Deke, and I’m not saying it will, but if it does, that’s a lot to ask of you.”

  “And me makin’ it clear I want a future with you, doin’ that tellin’ you you gotta leave your home to be on the back of my bike with me half a year wasn’t askin’ a lot of you?”

  This was true.

  Though I wasn’t certain he really understood.

  But maybe he did.

  “Jussy,” he gave my hand a light tug, “this works with us, there’s gonna be a lot of times I’m gonna ask a lot of you and I’m gonna get the same back from you. I got no experience with it. Longest I’ve ever been with a woman was a three-month stretch up in Idaho. But my boys all got women and I see that’s the way it goes. Shit, wait until Christmas. Laurie goes absolutely fuckin’ nuts at Christmas. She’s a grouch with a mission until she’s baked every cookie and sent every card, and the woman bakes and sends thousands, no fuckin’ joke. Tate and Jonas, they put up with that. Think it’s hilarious but they don’t get up in her shit about it. They keep their heads down and let her have at it because it’s important to her. And that’s it. The way it goes. You just gotta go with it.”

  I was all for just going with it.

  But Lauren being really into Christmas was not exactly the same as being on the road with your woman the rock star.

  “Well, I’m not getting back into that,” I told him.

  “Maybe,” he replied. “Don’t close that door, even in your head.”

  “Deke, there’s more to me leaving that life than what I said. I was in a relationship with one of my band. He was deep into shit I wanted no part of.”

  I got a hand squeeze where Deke probably felt my bones at talking about my relationship but he didn’t say anything about it.

  So I carried on.

  “Honestly, baby, it wasn’t who I was. It didn’t feel right. None of it.”

  “Unless you were on the stage.”

  He was freaking me out, how he seemed to be able to read things.

  It was frankly a little scary.

  “Unless I was on a stage,” I agreed.

  He must have read my freakout because he explained, “Not hard to see, gypsy. Only saw you once and it was clear. That was your place. That’s a big piece of who you are. Couldn’t miss it.”

  Right, well, that made sense.

  “Your choice, Jussy, like I said,” he continued. “Just want you to know you got that choice.”

  And I wanted him to know I loved him. I also wanted him to know all the reasons why.

  But he was making a turn so I didn’t say it to him.

  And we’d been together-together not very long so I didn’t want to share that and completely tweak him.

  So I kept my mouth shut about that and just said softly, “Thank you, honey.”

  He rubbed my hand on his thigh then kept holding it tight.

  And without another word, Deke drove us the rest of the way home.

  * * * * *

  The next morning on the way to the bathroom, my foot got caught in something and I tripped.

  I righted myself before going down and looked at what caught me.

  My dress tangled with Deke’s green shirt.

  And I stared at that dress Deke had thrown aside and the shirt I’d thrown aside last night, both lying on my bedroom floor, thinking distractedly I still needed a rug in there.

  But mostly what I thought was, that dress and that shirt could be on that floor in that house.

  Or it could be on any floor, if there were wheels underneath it or if it was in a motel in Idaho.

  Wherever.

  Be that on the road with Deke.

  Or Deke on the road with me.

  Staring at our tangled clothing, something slithered over me, every inch of my skin, like a protective sheen.

  This was the understanding that Deke had found the woman who could handle the road, the only place he could breathe easy.

  But it was also something I hadn’t thought about.

  This being that I had found the man who breathed easiest on the road, something that was in my blood, something that was a part of me, something that could mean something deeper again someday without me having to worry about where the man in my life would fit if I took to that road.

  My choice.

  I felt no anxiety around this train of thought, a train I hadn’t taken in a long time.

  I felt only ease.

  My choice.

  I had that choice. I had it when I didn’t have Deke and that had not changed like it most likely would have with another man.

  I still had it now that I had him.

  So I didn’t think of it at all.

  I just smiled at my awesome dress tangled in his kickass shirt, remembered how both pieces got where they were and kept walking to the bathroom.

  Chapter Twenty

  Root Myself in You

  Justice

  Standing in the chill outside by his SUV, I handed the clipboard with the paperwork that I’d just signed back to Max’s foreman, a guy named Deacon Gates.

  He’d been around occasionally, helping out sometimes the week after I’d been attacked. But mostly, after the boys had come, he let Deke take care of managing them, showing only when inspectors came to sign off on things.

  But now Deacon had just completed the final inspection, an inspection I’d trailed him through and just signed off on.

  This was because my house was all done.

  Done.

  “Right,” Deacon’s rough voice came at me and I focused on him in the ample glow provided by the outside lights at the door to my house.

  He was definitely of the gorgeous variety of mountain man.

  But he was different.

  The first time I’d met him my poet’s soul had started keening. Not like it did for Deke. It was something I’d never experienced.

  Chace, I sensed, had been broken. Meeting Faye, I knew she was the one keeping him together. More, it felt like Chace would give his all to keep himself together…for Faye.

  This man, Deacon Gates, had not been broken.

  He’d been destroyed.

  I saw it in the backs of his eyes. A deadness there that was chilling, heartbreaking, even frightening.

  This would have worried me, even so far as obsessed me, driving me to my notebook to pen a dozen songs he’d never know were for him even if I wrote them in an effort to heal him.

  Except I’d caught him catching a call.

  He’d been removed from me so I couldn’t hear what he said and I didn’t know who he was talking to, but whoever it was, they wrought miracles. As he spoke on the phone, his entire demeanor changed. He morphed before my eyes from a standoffish, taciturn man who was well-mannered and respectful but didn’t invite friendliness, becoming an average, everyday hot guy who you wouldn’t hesitate to invite over to watch a game.

  He’d fascinated me in the few times he’d been around, because it was the poet in me who saw this. Everyone else treated him like he was that everyday hot guy, maybe not exactly of the Bubba bent, but definitely like Deke. A good guy. One you’d want to be your friend. One who was open to being just that.

  It was me who saw in
to his soul and I suspected he felt it. To protect himself from me learning more, he kept distant, this being one of the few times we’d spent any amount of time together. Mostly, he dealt with Deke.

  “Max has a twelve-month guarantee,” he went on, cutting into my thoughts. “That may seem like a long time, Justice, but that time flies. You got a lotta house for just you. I advise you use it. Even the parts of it you won’t be in very often. Plug things in outlets. Flush toilets. Run faucets. Leave overhead lights on. Fire up that fireplace. Do a walkthrough if we get a big rain, make sure the roof is good. You find anything, you give me a call.”

  He said his last reaching behind him to pull out his wallet. When he got hold of it, he extracted a business card and offered it to me between two long fingers.

  I took it just as I noted flurries were starting to fall.

  I tipped my head back and looked to the night sky.

  The flurries were light but there they were.

  My first snow in the mountains.

  “Probably best to get those pumpkins in tonight,” Deacon stated and I looked back to him. “Mountain freeze this time of year can come with a thaw. And repeat. Those pumpkins could be goo in days.”

  I turned my head and stared at the cornucopia of autumn delights I’d arranged up my front walk. Real pumpkins. Strings of kickass electronic luminarias. The awesomest Halloween decoration I’d ever seen that I’d found in a gift shop in town: a stuffed, cackling witch on a broomstick decorated with leaves and glittery twine that Deke had mounted on my door.

  I turned back to Deacon. “I’ll take them in.”

  He nodded and asked, “You got any questions?”

  I shook my head.

  He looked over that head to my house and muttered, “You got ’em, you got answers a lot easier than callin’ me.”

  Deke was in my house so he was absolutely right.

  “The guys were great. It looks phenomenal. Thanks so much,” I told him.

  His attention came back to me. “Our job, Justice, but glad you like how it turned out.”

  Oh, I liked how it turned out.

  It was perfect.

  I grinned at him.

  “Gotta get home to my wife,” he stated, and with the flurries falling around us, the space lit by my outdoor lights, with an abruptness that was startling, I saw life flash bright in his eyes in such a way, I felt my heart squeeze.

  Death resurrected, right there for me to witness.

  So that was who the call was from.

  God, this man existed. He did his thing during the day, going through the motions.

  His life began again every time he went home.

  That so totally needed to be a song.

  “And you gotta get outta this cold or Deke’s gonna kick my ass,” he finished, a (very) small smile playing at his attractive mouth.

  Deke was bigger than this guy. Even so, I wasn’t sure it’d be easy for my man to kick Deacon Gates’s ass.

  Or anyone to do it.

  “Right, thanks again, Deacon,” I said.

  He jerked his head to the house. “Inside, Justice. And you’re welcome.”

  He moved to his truck.

  I moved up the walk, bending to gather a few pumpkins on the way.

  I stopped at the front door and turned back, juggling pumpkins to lift a hand to wave.

  Deacon was down the lane, his SUV shrouded by dark. I couldn’t see if he waved back.

  But I doubted he did.

  He was on a mission.

  Go home so his life could begin again.

  I opened the door on that thought, felt the wave of warmth hit me, squatted and put the pumpkins on the floor by the side of the door.

  I didn’t go back for more. I couldn’t see Deke but if he knew I’d gathered all the pumpkins without him helping, this would not make him happy.

  As I closed the door on the cold behind me, I took in all that lay before me.

  This was obviously not the first time I saw it. I’d watched it all coming together. And that day, as the finishing touches were done, the guys going around sweeping and vacuuming (I still had a cleaning service scheduled to come in the next day and do a full clean—the dudes tidied but they were dudes so they weren’t real good at it), I’d not once but several times wandered around, taking it all in.

  Though now it was vacant and quiet and I could do it without distractions or getting in anyone’s way.

  It was everything I imagined it to be and more. This more coming from the long copper hood over the center fireplace that was a showstopper. It also came from a set of wide, open-backed stairs set at the landing to the right. The treads of those stairs were the only thing in the house carpeted—thick, cream wool wrapped around each tread. The elegant yet rustic railings were pure artistry. And the inviting widened swirl bottom landing was something I couldn’t envision from looking at the plans. Something that was startlingly beautiful in reality.

  All building materials had been taken away but my garage was still filled, now with furniture and décor my designer had been sending, deliveries I’d been getting from hitting go on weeks of online shipping, bags of stuff I’d been buying.

  It was now Tuesday, a week and a few days after Deke and I went to dinner with Max and Nina.

  Tomorrow morning it was the cleaning service and me unearthing purchases from bags and boxes. Tomorrow evening, Deke had arranged for the guys to come around and carry in the furniture that had been delivered.

  And my house would start becoming a home.

  The only pall on this was that Deke was scheduled to hit another job Max was working on tomorrow. I would no longer have him at my house all day.

  Weirdly, we didn’t get on each other’s nerves with all the time we spent together. Granted, he was working and I also was doing my thing so we weren’t in each other’s presence 24/7, but we spent a lot of time together.

  More weirdly (but this weird was wonderful), the way that was felt like it wasn’t going to change. Not that what we had was new and we were in the throes of that—when every second you spent with a lover was fresh and exciting so you wanted to spend every second you had with them.

  No, it seemed more like this could be us. Was us. We could be that couple who worked together (if we had a business we both could do together), spending nearly every waking and sleeping moment in each other’s company, that coming natural, being easy, never getting old.

  I’d already found that we could do our thing, me going shopping with the girls or into town to get food or a mani/pedi. But there was a settling when I got back.

  Not like I couldn’t wait to get back, hated to be away from my man.

  Just that, when I was with Deke, everything that was me settled into the fact I was back where I belonged.

  So I wasn’t real hip on him being gone all day in a way I couldn’t get to him and ask what he thought about the towels I was buying for the guest bathroom (or whatever).

  But this was life. This was its rhythm and would be the months we stayed put.

  I needed to get used to it.

  I didn’t have to like it, but I needed to get used to it.

  Thinking of Deke, it came to mind that he’d disappeared. There was a lot of house, all of it easily accessible now with the stairs and all.

  But I had dinner in the Crock-Pot, a pulled-pork recipe that had filled the house with delicious smells all day. Smells Deke had told me he was looking forward to experiencing.

  And it was time to experience.

  So where was he?

  “Deke?” I called, moving farther into the space.

  “Yo,” he called back, sounding like he was in the bedroom.

  I headed that way but stopped when he emerged through the doorway to the hall.

  He did this with snowflakes quickly melting in his hair and on his shoulders. And with the chill setting in, even if he worked inside still only wearing a tee, now he had a padded flannel shirt on over that.

  He also emerged with
a bottle of champagne in his hand and a Deluxe Home Store bag dangling from the other.

  He moved right to the black, toffee and cream-veined marble-countertopped island that easily could seat six, even eight.

  Though there were only six stools wrapped and waiting to be brought in from the garage.

  We’d see how they fit. I might be doing more ordering.

  He shrugged off his flannel shirt and tossed it on the island. He put the bottle and bag on the island and dug into the bag.

  “Not sure in all the shit you bought that you got champagne glasses, or if you can even find them in that mess in your garage, so Lexie handed these off to Bubba and he stashed them outside.”

  After unearthing them from white tissue, he set the fluted glasses on the marble, tossed the bag aside and commenced unwrapping the foil on what I could see was a very good bottle of champagne.

  I stood immobile, watching him.

  The cork popped.

  I didn’t so much as twitch.

  Deke turned to me.

  I stared at his face.

  “Jussy?” My name was a question.

  “It’s snowing,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he replied quietly, being Deke, reading my mood and falling right into it so he could be there with me.

  Right there with me.

  “I need to get the pumpkins inside,” I shared.

  “Do that for you, babe, after we toast your place.”

  Yes, he would. He’d do that for me. He’d buy me champagne. He’d go on the road with me like Mace did with Stella and the Blue Moon Gypsies. Mace and Stella taking their kids along like Dad used to do with me.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  “Gypsy,” Deke said, calling my attention back to him.

  “I needed you…on the road,” I blurted.

  “Say again?” he asked.

  “I could have done it,” I shared, knowing this to be true straight to the pit of my heart.

  That place where my dad lived, Granddad, Joss, Lacey, Bianca, Mr. T, even Mav.

  Where Deke lived.

  “I could have made it,” I told him. “I could have handled it, all of it, if I’d had you.”

  His face changed, and immediately I memorized that change, the magnificence of it.