by Nicole Helm
He still had a mouth made for sin and muscles made for work. Too bad she knew the history underneath.
And she would use it if it came to that. Use all those feelings she’d denied herself since…well, since.
The silence hung between them, glittering with ghosts and secrets, and Caleb made no bones about scowling his distaste.
She’d heard it through the grapevine: Caleb Shaw had gone straight. She hadn’t thought much of it at first. The people in their old ne’er-do-well clan ended up one of three ways: getting their act together, dead in a ditch, or where she very well might be headed if she couldn’t figure her way out of this mess.
Jail.
Panic welled up in her chest, making it hard to pretend, but panic had been a constant companion since she could remember, so it didn’t show. It was her little secret.
“Who’s she?” Delia jutted her chin toward the brunette standing halfway behind Caleb, like he was protecting her.
Something uncomfortable twisted in Delia’s stomach, but she wouldn’t let it lodge there. If Caleb had a woman, that might complicate things, but it certainly wouldn’t stand in her way. She wasn’t going to jail for what Eddie had done, and she’d use whatever and whoever she had in her arsenal to make sure of it. That’s what had kept her from being dead in a ditch for twenty-some years.
That and Caleb’s fists one particularly unpleasant night, but that had also caused half of the trouble she was in right now, so it seemed to even itself out.
“She’s none of your business,” Caleb replied, standing even more in front of the woman.
Delia wanted to sneer. She looked more girl than woman. In fact, she looked like…
Delia couldn’t put her finger on it, but it didn’t matter. As far as Delia was concerned, the girl was a speed bump, and speed bumps were meant to be flown over.
Caleb turned his head to the girl, still keeping her out of Delia’s gaze, as though just glancing at Delia would be trouble. His voice was low, nothing more than a rumbled whisper, though Delia could make out the words go home. Good. Send the little girl away so they could have an adult conversation.
Now Delia had to figure out what to say. She hadn’t expected to have to use the backup plan so quickly, but it was there, fuzzy formed in her brain. Luckily she was used to thinking on the fly.
After a few hushed exchanges, the girl finally exited the cabin and Delia was left with Caleb. Alone. She forced her mouth to curl in a languid smile, the kind meant to allure, entice, remind.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded in a gravelly voice. That was new. She remembered the barely banked anger in his eyes, but not that steely note to his voice.
“How long’s it been, honey? Four years?”
“Not long enough, sweets.”
He’d never liked pet names, which was why she’d always used them with him. He’d respond sarcastically, but when a woman lived with a dearth of pet names, she didn’t care how the men around her said them.
Sweets was like a little bright pop of sugary candy. Delia could pretend for weeks on that sweets.
“Who’s the girl?”
Caleb brought the door shut with a loud snap. “She’s none of your business.”
“A little young for you.”
“Jealous?” He flashed a grin that held no happiness behind it, only a grave kind of malice. “How unlike you.”
It was the kind of exchange they’d had a million times. Poking at each other, over and over again. She’d always believed there was a magnetic force between them—drawing them together but sparking if they got too close.
Secrets always kept them from acknowledging what hummed in all these exchanges.
Awareness. Attraction.
She was no idiot when it came to those things, but she didn’t trust them when it came to Caleb and never had. But she’d use them if she had to. Caleb had gone straight, but he was still a man. He was still the man who’d almost killed her father—a fact only the two of them knew. That may have saved her life, but it had also made it far more complicated than it had been before. And it had been plenty complicated before.
Still, she had the upper hand here.
“Why are you here?” he demanded. If she hadn’t known him for almost her whole life, she might have been offended by the demand. It was harsh, but that was Caleb. When he wanted something, his temper frayed, and she knew he wanted her far away, not tiptoeing on his new straight-and-narrow life.
“I need your…” Help wasn’t the right word. She didn’t need his help. She had this covered—she only needed him to look the other way for a while. “All I need you to do is pretend I’m not here.”
His grip on the gun didn’t loosen, but she couldn’t say she was scared. She’d spent her life at the mercy of a man who used his fists or worse to get what he wanted, or to beat out a bad mood, or simply to lay blame. She’d had guns pointed at her, held to her head. So Caleb didn’t scare her in the least.
But jail for a crime she didn’t commit? Yeah, she wasn’t going down like that. She still had one sister to get out of the hellhole the Rogers called home, and she couldn’t do that locked up.
Caleb didn’t say anything for long, stretching minutes of silence. He glared at her, and she imagined the wheels inside his head were turning on overdrive.
“Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll pretend you aren’t here…on one condition.”
She’d spent too many years living in so many people’s conditions. It was foolish that her breath had caught in that pause. Foolish she’d thought he wouldn’t have one. Whatever glimmer of connection between them had never been particularly nice.
But there was a connection, which made her next move harder. Any stranger, any other man, and the overt flirtation would have been easy, welcome, practiced. But under Caleb’s steady blue gaze, she wilted halfway through licking her lips.
She had no power over Caleb, and hadn’t since elementary school when he’d caught her dumpster diving.
Caleb Shaw knew all her secrets, but there was one positive to that.
She knew all his too.
Chapter 2
It had been about five years since he’d had any interaction with Delia Rogers, and yet the emotions inside of him were as familiar as if she’d been by his side every day.
Blue Valley, Montana, was not a place where you could be the same age and not know each other. You went to school together, were in the same classes more often than not. Whether you liked each other or not was irrelevant—you knew each other.
Delia had been in most of his classes and she had run with the group of trouble makers he’d made the center of his world for the term of his adolescence. She had always, always been there, in the midst of almost everything he did, and he had, for a very long time, suffered the same wariness upon being in the same room with Delia Rogers.
He couldn’t remember a time when seeing her, being around her, thinking about her hadn’t sent a wave of feeling through him. A deep, chest-crushing wave of sympathy. A dark, sharp-edged urge to protect. Painful, unwanted lust.
If she had been just about any other woman, the lust wouldn’t be unwanted. It would have been acted on at the hundreds of wild, stupid parties they’d both attended. But long before he’d understood what lust was, one shared moment had always kept him away from Delia.
In the third grade, he’d watched her eat food out of a trash can with the faint mark of what had probably once been an impressive shiner on her cheek. Even at such a young age, he’d known Delia’s life was far more complicated and scary than his would ever be, even when he’d thought the devil was all but in him.
He had food to eat, a dad who protected him, and while he was half convinced there was no choice for him but to be bad, he’d known he was safe.
Delia was not. Had likely never been.
“What’s
your condition, Caleb?” Delia asked, her voice edged with exhaustion and…something he didn’t want to hear.
Hurt.
Why did he have to see through her? He didn’t want to. He wished she were as big of a mystery to him as she had been to the other guys they’d hung around. He wished she was an untouchable, wild thing. But instead she was always this clear, complex, beautiful woman to him.
He’d watched her have a gun pointed to her head by her own father, and he’d seen that same look on her face: weary acceptance, and determination to be brave.
He’d seen it for a lie too.
Then he’d beaten the ever loving shit out of a man twice his age and left him in a pool of blood.
He was scared to death this was all he had in him—violence and hurting people, even if it was in the name of protecting someone. Protecting Delia.
She’d never thanked him for it either. She’d said he’d ruined her life.
“Caleb,” Delia snapped. “Stop tripping down memory lane and tell me what the condition is.”
He realized his hands weren’t steady and leaned the gun against the wall. She always did this to him. It was why he shunned any and all connection to her in his attempt to be a decent human being ever since Dad’s accident. Her effect was more potent than any alcohol he’d downed to ease the anger.
Caleb cleared his throat. He knew she’d see through any attempt to pretend he was unmoved, unaffected by all the secrets that swirled between them, around them, but for his own pride, he pretended anyway.
“The condition is you tell me why you’re here.” He studied her now, sitting on the old couch like it was a throne. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and the fringe of her bangs was too long, covering half of her eyes.
She crossed long, slender arms across her chest, the leather of her coat stretching at the shoulders. It was old and just a hair too small for her. Something uncomfortable pinged in his chest. “Tell me,” he said gently.
He hated the way she yanked gentleness and care out of him without even trying. He didn’t trust her with that power.
Her gaze, still half-hidden by fringe, met his. “No.” Her nose was sharp, her mouth lush. Her cheeks were too hollow, her shoulders too sharp. She had to be hungry, and from the looks of it, she had to be running.
The wave of sympathy and a fierce urge to protect welled up inside him, but he wouldn’t be laid flat by that again. He’d fight it with everything he had. “Then get out.”
Her gaze never wavered. “No.”
He had to close his eyes and breathe through his temper, through wanting to run to the house, gather up half the pantry, and shove it at her. She needed someone to take care of her, mess that she was.
Unfortunately, he was no better. He just had a soft place to land time and time again. The ranch. Mel. Hell, even Summer and Dad. He had all these things and people he didn’t deserve, and Delia had nothing.
She unfolded herself from the couch, all languid ease, but he knew it was an act. Delia used her body and her face like weapons.
He couldn’t even blame her for it. It was all she had.
She trailed her fingertip over the back of the couch as she leisurely walked toward him. “I wonder what the statute of limitations on assault is,” she said conversationally.
He slowly lifted his gaze from her fingertip to her eyes, but she wouldn’t meet it. She kept her head cocked in a way that obscured her eyes with hair, every move she made too casual to be real.
He would not be affected. Or, more apt, he would not let the affected part of himself win. Because he truthfully, had no idea about statute of limitations would be. But surely it’d been too long. He wasn’t even sure he cared; all he cared about was that she was willing to try to use it against him. “I wonder what you’re running away from,” he replied just as casually. “Daddy dearest?”
This time her gaze did snap to his, and for the briefest of seconds, the flashes of anger and hurt and years of fear were so evident he almost staggered.
But after a second it was gone, and Delia was smiling the kind of sweet smile that always meant the opposite. “I’d certainly have come to the right place if that were true.” Nothing about her syrupy sweet smile changed. “Wouldn’t I have?”
“What do you want?” he demanded through gritted teeth, hands clenched into fists so he didn’t reach out and grab her by the shoulders. Too bony shoulders. Too fragile. Too everything.
Touching Delia in any way, shape, or form could only lead to disaster.
“I want a place to stay. You can pretend I’m not even here. Just don’t tell anyone I am. It’s simple and easy. Pretend like you never saw me. Tell her,” she said, jerking her chin toward where Summer had gone, “to do the same. That’s it. No biggie.”
“I should know what you’re hiding from.” The minute the words were out of his mouth, he wished them back. Actually, it would be better if he had no idea what she was hiding from. Better if he pretended she’d never existed.
Good luck, buddy.
“Oh, honey, you don’t want to know.” Her gaze sized him up in a quick up-and-down glance. “Straight and narrow agrees with you, Caleb. I’d hate to have to mess it up.” She raised her hand as if to pat his cheek, but he caught her wrist before she could touch him.
Sadly, that didn’t help any. It was still a connection. His fingertips wrapped around her narrow wrist. Her skin was smooth and cool, the pulse slowly bumping into him, a steady thrum-thrum-thrum. He wanted to draw his thumb against it. He wanted to do a million things with his hands.
Things he wouldn’t do to Delia. Not ever. Maybe he was bad blood, but he didn’t prey on weak women, even when they were so convinced they were strong.
“You’re too skinny,” he bit out, dropping her wrist, willing the feel of her out of his memory as soon as possible.
She barked out a laugh, her arm falling to her side, fingers curling into a fist. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Do you have any supplies?”
“I’ll get by just fine.” She unclenched her fist, tried to brush the too-long bangs out of her eyes. “I always do.”
Not always, he wanted to say, but he didn’t want to relive that night any more than she probably did, and if he acknowledged it aloud, they’d both have to face it.
“You have a week,” he said instead, trying to exert some form of control.
“Aw, that’s cute, trying to tell me what to do. I have as long as I’d like. Just go about your life, being Mr. Upstanding Citizen, and keep that girl away from me. End of story.”
He wished like hell it would be that easy, but he knew, even as he turned and grabbed his gun and left, it wouldn’t be. He’d be back soon enough.
* * *
Delia blinked at the door. Caleb’s hasty departure had been… She tried to analyze it. She thought she’d have to fight at least a little more to convince him to leave her alone.
She had to ignore the disappointment over that not being the case. She needed to be glad he was gone, glad he was going to leave her be. If nothing else, the way he’d held her wrist should send her packing.
Gentle. Gentle would kill her at this point. Still, she had nowhere else to go. Not until she figured out how to get around her current predicament. No one would find her unless Caleb snitched, and she’d ruin him before she let that happen.
She stared at the curtain hanging limply over the window. It looked like there’d been a pattern once, but the sun and age had faded it away. The hem was fraying, but the windows were so dirty, the protection against the sunlight was barely needed.
This place reminded her all too much of home, dark and grimy and old. It reminded her that Steph was still there, only sixteen and under Dad’s thumb. Hiding and cowering in the dark and dust and grime and abuse. Would Mom be more protective of her since she was the only one left? Or wou
ld it be worse, because his obsession with having a son had never materialized and he thought Steph was a glaring reminder?
Delia swung away from the window. She had to go about figuring out how to keep herself alive here. She had no food left, no means of making a fire, and Montana in March didn’t offer much hope for warm weather.
Once it got dark, she could probably sneak down closer to the Shaw house and steal some wood. She’d never been up to the main house, but there had to be a woodpile somewhere outside. And maybe she’d have to put her old Dumpster diving techniques to use.
She’d promised herself she’d never be there again, but what business did she have making any promises to herself—a poor girl with a bad reputation and a dangerous father? There was no promise she’d yet to keep for more than a handful of years.
Except getting her sisters out. She had to get Steph out and then…then maybe there were promises to be made. But before she could rescue Steph, she had to have a plan and she had to be alive.
She had one blanket in her pack. One change of clothes. A tube of lipstick. A pack of gum. A dead flashlight. Two dollars and a handful of pennies. It was all she’d managed to grab while the cops pounded at the door. The only thing that had been in her bag prior to that was a lowly condom.
She’d kept it as a good luck charm. She should have known good luck and sex didn’t mix.
A wave of exhaustion and defeat almost knocked her off her feet.
How had it gotten this bad?
Eddie. The bastard. He’d had her fooled. She thought she was using some dumb moron for a warm bed and some food on the table while she used every paycheck to get Billie to Seattle.
Instead, she’d been the one being used as the damned scapegoat when their idiotic drug ring got busted up. He’d been smart enough to fool her, but not smart enough to keep his ass out of trouble.
The only good thing about it was she’d gotten Billie away from Dad first. Elsie, the first sister Delia had whisked out of hell, had settled herself there and was thriving. Now Billie would have that chance too.