The Long Ride Home

by Kari Lynn Dell

  “Yeah. I do.” And he managed to sound like he meant it.

  “What about that?” She waved a hand at the tipi. “If you think I’m such a horrible person, what the hell was that last night?”

  That was perfect.

  No. He couldn’t say that. Couldn’t think it. Not now. “Maybe I should ask you the same question. What was that, Mary? One more way to soften me up, squeeze the reward money out of me? How far were you willing to go?”

  Her head jerked back as if she’d been slapped. The words left a taste like charcoal in David’s mouth, the ashes of the flame that had flickered between them. He wanted to reach out. Wipe that look from her face. But it was too late. For both of them.

  She squared her shoulders and curled her lip into a sneer that matched the acid dripping from her words. “I don’t even know you. And you expect me to put Kylan in your hands and trust that you’ll do right by him?”

  Trust. What a fragile, elusive thing. He’d thought he’d earned Mary’s, but it was only an act.

  “If you don’t know what kind of man I am by now, you never will.” On this point, he didn’t have to fake his conviction. As far as he was concerned, he’d proven everything that needed proving, take it or leave it.

  She stared up at him for a long, tense moment, her face so pale, her eyes so bleak, his hands itched to reach out to her, to soothe the pain he was inflicting even as a deeper, darker part of him smiled in grim satisfaction. You see? Didn’t I try to tell you to stay away?

  Yes. He’d let desire squelch that little voice, but he was listening now. Best that he’d seen the real Mary before he’d touched her, held her again. Because once more night might have pushed him past the tipping point. Into what, he refused to consider.

  She spun away, took five steps and stopped, spine rigid. Her voice was a flat monotone. “I’ll discuss this with Kylan.”

  “You do that. And tell him I’m leaving at nine tomorrow morning, with or without him.”

  She gave a curt nod and finally, finally, strode away, out of reach. He wheeled around and stomped back to his rig, around to the rear door of the trailer. His hand was on the latch when he stopped himself.

  What was he thinking? He didn’t have to unload here. It was over. He’d won. He didn’t have to leave Muddy behind ever again. He thumped a fist on the door in what should’ve been triumph and then headed for the pickup, almost losing a leg when the wind slammed the door behind him. Geezus. He thought it blew hard on the Colorado plains.

  He reached for the ignition and nearly jumped out of his skin when something moved in the back seat. He jerked around, heart scrabbling up into his throat. “What the hell?”

  “Shhh!” Kylan crouched behind the passenger seat, finger pressed to his lips. “Just go, before she figures out I’m not in my room.”

  “Why aren’t you?”

  “I want to come with you tonight,” Kylan said with pleading, puppy-dog eyes. “Otherwise, she’ll talk me out of going.”

  Oh, hell. The kid was right. And, yeah, Kylan needed to learn to stand his ground, but this was no battle for a rookie. David huffed out an exasperated breath. “You can’t just run off. You’ll scare her half to death.”

  Kylan gave him a wobbly smile. “It’s okay. I left a note.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Considering the quality of Kylan’s previous note, David made him type up a text message and insisted on reading it before the kid hit send.

  “I’m spending the night with David. I really, really want to go with him. Please don’t be so mad at me. Love you. Kylan.”

  Then, just to be double-sure no one could accuse him of stealing the kid, David copied Mary’s number into his phone and sent a text of his own. “Kylan insisted on coming with me tonight. I’ll bring him back in the morning.”

  He kept one eye in the rearview mirror, expecting to see her pickup roaring up on them, but there was no sign of pursuit. They were unloading the horses at the Stampede Grounds when Kylan’s phone beeped.

  Mary’s response was a single letter. “K.”

  David got nothing, which was probably the best he could expect, but she wouldn’t give up that easily, would she? Obviously, Kylan didn’t think so. His head jerked up like he’d been hit with a cattle prod every time a vehicle came toward the fairgrounds from the west, but none of them was Mary’s pickup.

  If it was any other woman, David would have assumed she was just angry, refusing to speak to them until she cooled down. Since it was Mary, he was afraid she was plotting a counterattack. Hopefully, she hadn’t kept any souvenirs from her trip to Afghanistan. Like a grenade launcher. Or a flame thrower.

  He gathered up three bags of laundry, the hard knot of anger in his gut dissolving into what felt like a nest of worms slithering and squirming as he imagined Mary out there at her house. Alone. Wounded. By words that he’d said. What had come over him? Yeah, he had good reason to be mad, but how could he have been so cruel? As if he was trying to prove he was every kind of asshole she’d imagined he could be.

  He slung the laundry bags into the back of the pickup and followed Kylan’s directions to the Laundromat, clear on the other end of town in a log building across the road from the community college, which made David think of Mary all over again. Had she thought of him, those kisses they’d shared, while she sat through her seminar there all day? Had she made plans for how they’d spend this last night together?

  If so, they were both fools.

  The Laundromat was blessedly empty. Everybody else must be smart enough to stay in out of the howling wind. Then again, if these people hunkered down every time the wind blew, they’d never get out of the house.

  Kylan helped haul the bags in and dump them on a table for sorting, then he hunched over his phone in the corner while David separated the pile into colors and whites. As David fed quarters into the last washing machine, Starr’s car whipped into the parking lot.

  Kylan jumped up and went to meet her outside. Probably not a good sign that David could hear her screeching over the sound of water gushing into four different washing machines. She did a lot of arm waving and chest poking. Kylan responded with shrugs and slouches and head shakes, but he didn’t appear to be backing down.

  Good for him.

  Finally, Starr ran out of steam. She asked Kylan a question. He nodded. She asked something else. He shook his head. She turned to scowl through the window at David. He stared back, not even pretending he hadn’t been watching.

  Starr blinked first. She looked back at Kylan, asking another question. He shook his head. David clearly read her lips. Please? Kylan shook his head again, more adamantly. She pushed her mouth into a pout. Kylan leaned in, kissed her and then backed away, turning to scurry into the Laundromat. Starr stared after him until the glass door thumped shut. Then she shot David a death glare, slammed into her car and drove away.

  David raised his eyebrows at Kylan.

  “She doesn’t want me to go,” Kylan said.

  “I figured,” David said. “What did you tell her?”

  Kylan fidgeted with the chrome coin tray on the nearest washing machine. “I said she should be happy I was getting a chance to do something cool, instead of holding me back. That’s when she got really pissed.”

  Sounds familiar. David cleared his throat. “Did she dump you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You think she might?”

  Kylan jerked a shoulder. “Dunno. Maybe.”

  “That would suck.”

  “I guess.”

  David paused in the midst of screwing the top onto the bottle of laundry detergent. “You aren’t sure?”

  Kylan gave it more thought than David expected. “Starr’s cool. I like her a lot. But she’s all serious about us, and we’re just kids, ya know?”

  Eighteen. The same age David and Emily were the fi
rst time they talked about getting married. Just kids playing at grown-up love. And look how that had turned out.

  “Yeah,” David said. “I know.”

  After what happened with Emily, he had sworn he wouldn’t settle for less than unqualified faith and support. Mary was about as trusting as a feral cat in a barn full of stray dogs. The two of them together were a disaster in the making. She had to know it as well as he did.

  But why hadn’t she come after Kylan, dammit?

  Kylan rattled the coin tray, his eyes and mouth both turned downward. “What if Mary’s so mad she doesn’t want me back?”

  Panic welled, nearly closing David’s throat. Could they really have made her mad enough to give Kylan the boot? An image popped into his head…Mary, fierce and defiant on the shore of the lake at Two Medicine when he asked what came after Kylan’s graduation.

  “Never happen,” David said.

  “How do you know?”

  “She said so.” David could see her, plain as day, framed by the lake and mountains, vibrating with the intensity of her conviction. “She told me no matter where you go or how old you get, you’ll always be hers, and anybody who wants a piece of her will just have to deal with it.”

  Kylan’s gaze jumped up, hope lighting his eyes. “Really? She said that?”

  “Word for word.” Or close enough. David braced a hip against the washing machine, the swish and thump of the agitator vibrating his bones, filling his lungs with what was supposed to be mountain-fresh scent.

  The soap company’s marketing team had obviously never experienced the real thing.

  David had, and a whole lot more. The past three days had been crammed so full of authentic experiences his mind could barely sort the good from the bad. Huckleberry pie. The bear. The oily black smoke from burning tires he could still taste at the back of his tongue. And Mary, warm and willing in his arms.

  “Do you want a piece of her?” Kylan asked.

  David started, caught dead to rights. “Excuse me?”

  “Not that kind,” Kylan said, making a disgusted face. “But you like her, right? I mean, besides her butt. I know you like that, I seen you checking it out.”

  Embarrassment heated David’s face and turned his words to adolescent stutters. “Well, yeah. I like her okay, I guess.”

  “You aren’t sure?” Kylan asked, echoing David’s earlier question.

  “Yes, I’m sure. But—”

  “’Cause she likes you,” Kylan cut in. “I can tell. She don’t make out with just anybody.”

  “Doesn’t,” David corrected, scowling. “And we weren’t making out.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Kylan rubbed a hand over his still-smooth jaw. “Dude. You left a mark. You wanna sneak around necking with girls, you gotta shave first.”

  Shit. Now David was blushing outright. “What’s your point?”

  “I’m just wonderin’…you like her, she likes you…”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Because of me.” Kylan slumped, plunking both elbows on his washing machine and staring morosely at his hands. “I’m always messin’ things up for her.”

  “It’s not you. We fought about other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “She lied to me about Muddy being yours. And she’s so damn suspicious, always ready to believe the worst when all I’ve done from the start is try to make the best of this mess.” Crap. What was supposed to be righteous anger sounded a whole lot like whining instead.

  “It wasn’t much of a lie,” Kylan said. “I would’ve done whatever Yolanda wanted. She scares the shit outta me. And Mary doesn’t have much reason to trust guys. Most of ’em are just lookin’ to get laid.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  He could see Kylan was fixing to ask what he was after, so he held up a hand for silence. “Look, Kylan, it wouldn’t work, okay? I’m on the road all the time. I never know from one week to the next if I’ll have two dollars in my pocket. And there are always women hanging around at the rodeos, angling for any cowboy they can catch. If Mary can’t trust me when I’m standing in front of her, how’s she gonna feel when she hasn’t laid eyes on me for a month?”

  “You could try it and find out,” Kylan said stubbornly.

  David shook his head. “I gave six years of my life to a woman who bailed when I needed her the most. I can’t do that again.”

  “You think Mary’s gonna cave the first time things get a little rough?” Kylan snorted in derision. “In case you didn’t notice, letting go ain’t exactly her strong point.”

  Okay, yeah, the kid had him there. Mary didn’t know the meaning of quit. But still… “That’s the point. She’s got…issues.”

  “Who don’t?” Kylan’s expression included David in that crowd.

  David grabbed his bottle of laundry soap and stuffed it into one of the bags. “It’s not gonna happen, so just drop it, okay?”

  “Fine.” Kylan sauntered over, plopped down in one of the plastic chairs and stared at David.

  “What?” David demanded.

  “I was just thinkin’, this is a first.” Kylan gave him an irritating little smirk. “For once, I’m not the one running away.”

  Chapter Thirty

  As punishment for being a wise ass, David made Kylan battle the wind to walk down the road and grab food from the Town Pump. He came back with enough fried chicken and potato wedges to feed an army, or two men who’d been roping all afternoon. He’d also tossed in two big bags of chips, a box of vanilla wafers and super-sized Cokes.

  Kylan tore into the food like a starving wolf cub. David managed to snatch a drumstick from the bag without losing any fingers, but his stomach was so twisted with guilt and worry he could barely swallow. He picked up his phone, put it down, picked it up again. If he called Mary, would she answer? Could she answer? What if he’d upset her so bad she’d had another flashback? Or a blinding headache? Someone should be there to look out for her.

  Galen. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? David found the number in his contacts and hit send before he could chicken out. He sat through five rings before the generic computer voice told him to leave a message. He hung up, at a loss what to say.

  “You sure you don’t want some more?” Kylan asked, eyeing the last piece of chicken. Geezus. David was gonna have to shoe a couple of extra horses a week just to feed the kid.

  “Go ahead.” Desperate for a distraction from his reeling thoughts and growing nausea, he pulled out a beat-up copy of Louis L’Amour’s Last of the Breed.

  Kylan eyed the cover, curious. “Is that about an Indian guy?”

  “Yep. You’d like it. Best ending ever written. You can read it while we’re on the road.”

  Kylan scrunched his nose. “I don’t like to read.”

  Didn’t like, or struggled? David hiked a shoulder. “We’ll rent the audio book. Give us something to do besides bitch at each other.”

  Kylan finished stuffing his face and commenced playing some kind of game on his phone, thumbs flying. David transferred loads from washers to dryers and then settled back to read, skipping to his favorite scenes in the book. The words couldn’t hold his attention, distracted as he was by the doubts screaming inside his head. What if Mary was right? What if he couldn’t handle Kylan? How did he know he had the patience, or the understanding, or the skills?

  What if he lost Kylan the way he’d lost Muddy?

  As his anxiety spiraled, the air in the Laundromat condensed, too warm, too thick to drag into his lungs. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck. David dropped the book into his lap and leaned forward, the movement abrupt enough to get Kylan’s attention.

  “If we’re gonna do this, you’ve gotta promise me something,” David said.

  Kylan’s eyes went wary under his crooked cap brim. “Uh, sure.”

  “No mat
ter what happens—if you’re mad, or tired, or homesick, or whatever—you stick with me. If you feel like you’re gonna explode, fine. Yell, stomp, take a swing at me if you have to, but you don’t run away. I need you to swear it. Can you do that?”

  The question hung between them, like an echo that went out, bounced back, the layers of meaning separating. Not just can you promise, but can you do that? Control your emotions, your impulses?

  Kylan did him the honor of thinking it over. Then he nodded. “I can. Promise.”

  “Okay.” David leaned back, able to take a deep breath again. “Thanks.”

  “Whatever,” Kylan said, and went back to his game.

  When they got back to the rodeo grounds, Kylan checked the horses and refilled water buckets, lingering to scratch all of Frosty’s favorite spots while David packed away his clean clothes, leaving a drawer and part of the closet empty. He handed Kylan extra blankets and a pillow.

  “I’m gonna go fuel up the pickup so we don’t have to do it in the morning.”

  “’Kay,” Kylan said.

  David scooted out the door while the kid was preoccupied with figuring out how to fold the table down into a bed. He did intend to fill the fuel tank, but he made a detour first. Hopefully, Kylan wouldn’t notice that he turned the wrong direction leaving the fairgrounds.

  David slowed when he got close enough to see Mary’s place. It wasn’t stalking if he was checking to be sure she was all right, was it? Though how he’d be able tell from half a mile away was beyond him. Didn’t matter. He had to try.

  He turned off the highway and parked on a grassy approach that led to a pasture gate, blinded by the sun as it settled into sharp vee between two craggy peaks. The mountains compressed the round ball into a wedge, then a pinpoint beam, and then it blinked out.

  In the rapidly purpling dusk, David had a clear view of Mary’s yard. He blew out a relieved breath when he spotted Galen’s black flatbed parked in the driveway next to Mary’s pickup. Thank God. She wasn’t alone. The house was dark, but light glowed from the barn door and smoke curled lazily from the top of the tipi.