by Tina Leonard
Saint smiled at her. “Don’t cry, Mom.”
She wiped at her eyes, leaned on his shoulder. “It’s just that Thanksgiving and Christmas are only a couple of months away. My kitchen won’t be repaired by then. Where will we have our holiday traditions?”
Damn. He should have seen this coming. “We’ll use my house. It’ll be fine.” The insanity would just come to his turf, that was all. It hit him that between his family craziness and Cameron’s obvious family wrinkles, they might have been in for some interesting genetic history—had he and she worked out. The thought didn’t scare him as much as he figured it should have. “In fact, you should think about coming to stay with me. I’m not sure this is safe for you.”
She shook her head. “No, I couldn’t. I want to be here to make sure no one loots my house.”
There was nothing to loot. “Where are my sisters?”
“Gone to town to get food. Buy a refrigerator, a few cleaning supplies.”
Saint hoped a microwave wasn’t on the list. He shook his head. “How can I help you?”
“You can take that fifty grand into town. Exploding two hundred dollars has really annoyed me.” She looked at him. “Do you think I’m getting simple?”
“Oh, God, Mom, no. Jesus. There’s nothing wrong with you.” He sighed. “You made a mistake. We all make them. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
She sat quietly, and Saint glanced around the small living room of the small house. It was lucky the whole house hadn’t gone up; he was surprised it hadn’t.
“Steel was out here today,” Rose said. “He said he can have a crew out to start on this next week.”
Saint grunted. “Steel didn’t tell me about the fire, or I would have been here sooner. I’m sorry as hell, Mom.” He couldn’t understand why Steel or Declan or someone hadn’t come out to the creek to give him the news.
“I told Steel not to tell you. I don’t like to bother anyone.” Rose got up. “It was just a little smoke thing, Saint. Nothing to trouble anyone over.”
The kitchen was a burned-out shell. Rose didn’t want to admit it to herself because she was afraid she was slipping mentally. Yet Steel’s not telling him about the fire was a problem, even if Rose had asked him not to.
The sheriff was peeved because he knew that Saint knew what was going on with Judy and had gone along with her wishes and not broadcast her personal business—even to Steel, who figured he had a right to know. His not telling Saint about the fire had been a silent message.
Saint stood. “So, Thanksgiving dinner at my house.”
“Would you mind?” Rose asked gratefully.
“It’ll be good to start a new tradition at my house.”
“And you could invite that sweet girl the sheriff was telling me about! Cameron, or something like that.”
“No, Mom.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “There won’t be a sweet girl there. Now, let’s go to the garage and rob your freezer. If I hurry, I can make your deposit before the bank closes.”
“You know, we didn’t much trust banks after the savings and loan debacle here,” Rose began, following him. Saint sighed.
“I know, Mom. I know.”
Nobody trusted anybody half the time. And that was why he needed to get into town to talk to Steel.
Something had to change.
Really change.
Chapter 20
The first place Saint went after leaving his mother was the training center. He wanted to beard Steel in his den—the jail.
To his shock, Cameron was there, obviously loading up Charlie’s trailer to hit the road. For good.
And she hadn’t called to let him know she was in town.
No one had. Not even his brothers, who were supposed to be loyal to him. He’d spied Declan in the trailer, situating footlockers of horse tack and other things. Saint parked his truck and got out, not exactly sure what to do, but knowing he had to do something.
“Hi,” he said to Cameron as he hotfooted it up behind her.
“Hi.” She didn’t look happy or unhappy to see him—just sort of, Oh, there you are.
It was annoying—and not a little frightening. His heart was beating out of his chest; why wasn’t her heart beating out of hers?
“Does this mean you’re heading to Houston for good?” Saint asked, noting that Declan made himself scarce in a hurry, the chickenshit.
“Something like that.” Cameron turned to look at him, and once again, he felt himself drowning in her eyes, her smile—oh, heck, her everything. He had not played this well at all.
“Can I help with something?”
She shook her head. “I think we’ve got everything. Thanks, though.”
There didn’t seem to be much else to say, and yet Saint could think of a thousand things that wanted to rush out of his mouth. “Did Anna stay in Houston?”
She nodded. “She’s very happy to be back. She’s figured out what she wants to do in life.”
“That’s half the battle. I still haven’t figured out what I want to do in life.”
He’d meant to be funny, keep the moment lighthearted, but the second he said it, he knew he’d made a mistake.
Cameron nodded gravely. “I know. You’ll figure it out one day.”
“And you? I guess you’ve figured it out.”
She drew in a deep breath. Pulled her keys from her back pocket. “I got sidetracked for a while, but going home convinced me. And Declan helped, too.”
He was going to toss his buddy into the creek for all the “help” he’d provided his relationship with Cameron. “Does Judy know you’re leaving?”
She nodded. “Judy gave me her unconditional blessing. Said it was exactly what I should be doing.”
This made no sense. Judy had taken his head off for destroying her team, putting the blame squarely at his door for something he’d really had no part in. “You know I wish you the best,” he said, not sure what else to say. What did you say to a woman who was determined to leave? He could tell she’d put up an electric fence between him and her; it was practically snapping sparks.
“I know you do. And same to you.” After a long moment of staring into his eyes, almost long enough to give him hope that she might say she didn’t really want to leave him, she walked away. Declan had Charlie for her, so she led the beautiful horse up into the trailer. Lucky stood by, confused by what was happening, his tail low. He could sense Saint’s sadness, Saint instinctively knew, and there was no point standing around looking like he was crying inside, which he was. So he called his dog and hopped back into his truck to find Steel, the only person he knew he could count on to know exactly how it felt when your woman left you behind when you really, really didn’t want her to go.
—
Saint found Steel, as he knew he would, in his chair in the jail, his boots propped on the scarred desk, glancing over paperwork as if he had no idea that Hell was undergoing a major reorganization. He knew, damn it—he’d been behind a lot of it.
“Steel,” he said, announcing himself without any of the usual backslapping fanfare, “what the hell were you thinking not telling me that my mother damn near burned her house down?”
Steel looked up at him. “She didn’t nearly burn her house down. It was just a little grease fire.”
So everyone who knew the truth was going to stick to the story about the little bit of smoke that had just somehow blown the kitchen right off the house, sort of like Dorothy’s twister blowing her house around in Kansas. “A grease fire.”
“Not even a fire. More like a little smoke. Your mother is a fine cook. She just left something in the pan too long.”
“What she left too long was a couple hundred bucks wrapped tightly in foil,” Saint said, annoyed. “Instead of her soup, which you know damn well.”
Steel smiled. “Well, what’s a little bit of dough, anyway?” He laughed, uproariously pleased with himself.
“Really? Were you saving that one up just for me?” Saint slun
g himself into the chair opposite Steel’s desk. Lucky lay down at his feet. Running into Cameron had frazzled him so much that he’d forgotten to leave Lucky behind. “I know you were paying me back for not telling you about Judy. I couldn’t tell you Judy’s secret, Saint. She’d’ve killed me. And you of all people know very well that you do not want to ever be on our mayor’s bad side.”
“I have a bad side too,” Steel said, and Saint winced.
“I’m not saying I don’t respect you. I’m just saying that I couldn’t tell you. It was Judy’s secret. And to be honest, I never even knew if it was true, because Ivy told me. I wouldn’t let anything Ivy told me cross my lips unless I had it verified by legal counsel. If Ivy says its raining, you have to look outside.”
“I still don’t know why Judy left, and you do.” Steel gazed at him pointedly.
“Oh, no. Don’t ask me, Steel.” He hunched his shoulders against this new attack. “It’s not worth it to blab in this town. Besides, she’s back now, right?” He sat straight. “And that brings me to the next thing, although I still have some very large bones to pick with you about my mother’s fire.”
“It was just a little smoke,” Steel said, sticking to the story.
“Cameron’s leaving. In fact, she’s probably pulling out of town right now,” Saint said, his heart breaking so hard he felt certain he could hear it.
Steel shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you about that. But come with me for a second, if you don’t mind. I need some help with a lock in one of the jail cells. It’s stuck so bad I can’t budge the damn thing.”
“You tried WD-40? Or grease?” Saint followed behind the sheriff, glad to get off the subject of Judy. That topic was a tinderbox, destined to erupt into flames faster than his mother could nuke a few Benjamins.
“I’ve tried everything, or I wouldn’t be asking to borrow your expertise.”
There were only two cells in Hell, so rarely used that it was no surprise that they might have gotten stiff. Saint jiggled the lock, noting that it felt all right. Lucky followed him as he went inside the cell and peered at the opposite side of the tumbler to see if something was stuck—and Steel swung the door shut with a clang. He had it locked so fast it took Saint a moment to process that Steel had just thrown him in jail.
“Steel, what the hell?” Saint demanded.
Steel shook his head. Shoved his hat a little farther down on his head. “Not that I should tell you, because you’re sitting on a few secrets of your own you’re not sharing, but Declan asked me to stall you for about three hours. Maybe more.”
Saint’s jaw unlocked at this betrayal. “Why?”
“You tell me, I’ll tell you.”
“I can’t. Steel, I can’t, goddammit.” He stared at the sheriff. “Are you telling me that Judy’s been back in town a full day and night, and you still haven’t gotten out of her why she left?”
He shook his head. “She’s never going to tell. And I have to know.”
“Yeah, but you can’t expect me to get between a man and a woman. A mayor and a sheriff.” He swallowed hard. “Steel, she’s your Saturday Night Special. Ask her!”
He shrugged. “She says she was searching for new team members. But since she didn’t know her team had blown up, maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. She’s looked before, but then again, I think that was an excuse to cover the fact that she was searching for wedding vendors and regalia. She has big plans for Hell, does my girl,” he sighed.
“This has nothing to do with me. Let me out, damn it! You can’t hold me without some kind of legal reason.”
“I have one. You were loitering.”
“Loitering? Where the hell was I loitering?”
“In my office.” He put the keys back in his pocket.
“I demand a lawyer! Shit, Steel, everyone loiters in Hell! What else are we supposed to do around here?”
Steel’s laughter floated back to him. “Tell me when you’re ready to talk. And then I’ll be happy to tell you all about Declan setting Cameron up with Shorty in Colorado.”
Saint’s hands curled around the bars as he peered into Steel’s office. His insides went arctic cold. “Is that where she’s going?”
“I don’t know,” Steel said, irritating Saint and enjoying it.
Steel wouldn’t have dropped that bomb unless it was true. He’d told Saint just to give him a jolt, knowing very well Saint didn’t want Cameron going to Colorado, didn’t want her learning the ropes with the best bullfighting trainer in the business. “Damn it, Steel!”
“Make all the noise you want,” Steel said happily. Saint watched as he put his boots comfortably up on the desk and leaned back in the chair. “Your pain is music to my ears right now.”
This sucked. Sucked the big one. Saint glared helplessly into Steel’s office. “Declan wants to give Cameron three or four hours head start so I can’t stop her. Doesn’t he?”
The interrogative was really a statement.
“Maybe,” was Steel’s noncommittal answer. Saint watched, aggravated, as Steel fired up a big-ass cigar, blowing smoke around his office, the very picture of a man well-pleased with himself.
Judy walked in, stopping cold when she saw Saint and Lucky in the cell. Saint noticed the sheriff hastily put his cigar out and hide it.
“Hello, beautiful,” Steel said to Judy.
“When’d you get a gorilla?” she asked Steel, looking at Saint.
“Oh, he just wandered in. You know how gorillas do.” He drew Judy into his arms. “I’ve missed the hell out of you.”
Great. He was going to have to listen to the sheriff woo his lady, while his lady was hotfooting it out of Texas. And he was stuck like a bug in a bottle. He rattled the bars to let off some steam, realized he was probably making Steel very happy to have gotten so thoroughly under his skin. Saint sat down and began whistling show tunes, the kind that were upbeat and annoying and had nothing to do with romantic moments.
“He’s a noisy prisoner,” Judy said.
“I heard that!” Saint said.
“Noisy and ornery,” Steel said. “He’ll pipe down after a few hours in there.”
The hell I will. I can withstand a lot of pain for a long time—and this ain’t nothing like what I’ve gone through before.
He started whistling a sad tune, one that never failed to bring a sort of melancholy to a room but which was one of his favorites: “Greensleeves.” Having been a fan of Lassie, thanks to his mother’s appreciation for the old classic black-and-white TV shows, he whistled away its theme song, and Lucky pricked his ears, then began howling.
“Does the dog have to be punished, too, sweetie?” Judy asked Steel, and Saint froze.
“I suppose not,” Steel said reluctantly. “It does seem rather cruel.”
Saint picked Lucky up. “You’re taking my dog over my dead body. And I mean so dead you’ll have to send me to the mortuary.”
“Gracious, Saint. No need for drama.” Judy sighed. “Why must you always be such a rebel?”
He was the rebel? He glared at Judy, the town’s biggest rebel. “You gave Cameron your blessing to go to Colorado to train with Shorty, didn’t you?”
Judy nodded, her eyes sparkling with pleasure as she came to stand in front of the bars. She stroked Lucky’s nose through a gap in the metal. “I certainly did! I always knew that girl had it in her to be a champion bullfighter. She just needed to get you out of her system.” She looked at Saint. “You were holding her back, you know.”
“I was training her!”
“Yes, but not really. I read through your lesson plan. You didn’t train Cameron nearly as hard as you trained Ava. At first I thought maybe you hadn’t wanted to be a hard-ass because you wanted to keep the loving going.”
He rolled his eyes. “No.”
“But then I realized you didn’t want to train her up because you didn’t want her to be ready for Colorado. Just like you didn’t want her to be a cop.” Judy shook her head. “Steel and I
put all the pieces together and realized you just wanted to keep Cameron safe. Like a doll in a glass case.”
“Not entirely true,” he grumbled. “She wasn’t sure what she wanted.”
“Because she was picking up conflicting signals from you.” Judy scratched Lucky’s head, and Lucky twisted with pleasure, which irritated Saint even more. He stepped back a bit so the mayor couldn’t enjoy Lucky’s soft, thick fur. “It’s true,” Judy said. “You couldn’t make up your mind. Did you want a relationship, or didn’t you? Was it sex, or was it love? Did you want to train her, or not?” She shrugged. “You trained Ava with all your heart. Of course, that was probably to get Trace off his big, scared ass, which I applauded. But when it came to your own heart, you wussed out.”
Maybe. Maybe not. He wasn’t sure. His mind whirled at the thought of Cameron getting crushed under several hundred pounds of bull, and he felt himself get a little light-headed. Okay, so maybe it was a little true. But that didn’t mean she needed to ditch him for Colorado.
“The thing is,” Judy said, “you’re a born protector, Saint. That’s what you’ve always done. With four sisters and a scatterbrained mother, it always fell to you to be the man. It was natural you’d go into the Navy to protect your country. Then you came back here and found someone new to protect. But Cameron wasn’t looking for a man.” Judy narrowly gazed at him. “She was looking for a trainer.”
“Shitfire,” Saint said. There was no way out of this. The whole thing was messed up six ways from Sunday. His heart was bleeding, broken in his chest, a dying thing. And his friend Declan, who was supposed to have his back, had him stalled in here.
Knowing full well Saint would do everything he could to stop Cameron from leaving him—but not from leaving her dream. He’d never meant for that to happen. Yet he could see now that he had been reluctant to give Cameron the tools and support she needed to make it. The self-analysis didn’t feel good, especially not coming courtesy of people he’d always assumed were his best friends.
Damn it.