“Oh, that piece of shit. Jesus motherfucking Christ,” Heath muttered.
No, that asshole was not driving drunk. Leaving the door open behind him, Heath charged across the parking lot. He grabbed the door out of Black’s hand and ripped it open, then reached in and took two fistfuls, one of shirt and the other of Black’s long hair, and yanked the yelping motherfucker out of his truck.
“I AM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU! RIP YOU APART WITH MY BARE HANDS!” he roared, and commenced doing exactly that. Black was too drunk to get any kind of defense up.
A crowd gathered almost at once; Heath was foggily aware of it as their circling bodies changed the light around him. But nobody stopped him—or he didn’t realize that anyone was trying until his hands ached viciously and he heard Logan shouting his name from some point far away.
When he heard that, it broke into whatever fugue he’d been in, and Logan and somebody else—oh, Steve, one of their hands at the ranch—managed to pull him back.
“That’s enough, little brother. That’s enough.”
“He was in his goddamn truck. He meant to drive,” Heath growled, panting, by way of explanation.
“I know.” To somebody else, Logan said, “Go in and get Reese.” It must have been Steve he’d spoken to, because Heath felt two hands leave him. Logan continued, “And somebody deal with that bastard. Anybody gonna stop me taking my brother home?”
Apparently, the answer was no, because Logan hooked his arm firmly over Heath’s shoulders—no easy feat, since Heath was the taller brother—and led him back to his truck.
Gabe was up, standing about halfway between Logan’s truck and Black’s. She’d seen or heard, or both, enough to have that awful, wide-eyed look about her, the one that said she was afraid of him. Her hair was mussed, and she rocked on her feet. What must the scene have looked like to her inebriated mind?
“What happened?”
He reached his hand out to her. When her eyes, hazy with drink, flared even wider at the sight, Heath glanced down and saw the blood dripping from his fingers. He dropped his hand to his side. “I’m sorry, little one. Please don’t be afraid.”
Logan let Heath go and went to Gabe. “It’s okay, Gabe.”
When she looked up at his brother, her eyes focused and grew calm, and Heath felt a nearly undeniable impulse to punch Logan in the face. But she turned those calmer eyes on him, then, and smiled—a hesitant smile, too obviously brave, but better than that fearful doe look.
He wiped his bloody hand on his jeans and held it out to her again, and this time she took it, carefully, wrapping her hand around his fingers, avoiding his knuckles.
“Let’s go home.”
“But the rodeo,” Gabe protested. If she’d remembered that, she was sobering up at least a little, then.
“Do you really want to go to the park now, Gabe?”
She looked past him, back to the scene. Heath didn’t bother to turn around to see. Then she shifted her eyes back to his and shook her head. “No. I want to go home.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gabe was quiet on the ride back to the ranch. They all were, in fact. Nobody spoke until Logan pulled up in front of Heath’s porch and said, “You want me to talk to Dad tonight?”
Normally, Heath’s answer would have been no, he would have wanted to speak to their father himself. But Gabe was his priority tonight. He met his brother’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, thanks. We’ll come over early in the morning, and I’ll talk to him before breakfast.” Tomorrow was Sunday. The big family breakfast would either have lively conversation or seething silence this week.
“Okay. You gotta find a way to get right with Brandon bein’ in town, little brother. He’s not leaving. He’s working with Whitt now and—”
“Wait. You knew?”
“Yeah. He’s just doing ranch work. Low-level shit. But he sees it as protection for himself, and he wants to stay close to his mom.”
“Why not stay on the rez, then? And why the hell is Whitt taking one of his damn hands out to lunch?”
He was ramping up again; he could feel it, and he could hear it. Gabe, sitting with him in the back seat, staring at her lap, flinched. With his arm around her, he felt it almost as strongly as if it had been his own movement. He forced air to move slowly into his body and back out.
“Sorry. Okay. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Tell the kids we’re sorry we missed the rodeo.”
Gabe flinched again, more subtly, and Heath felt his heart getting torn to shreds by all the ways he was making her unhappy in such a short space of time.
“I will. I’ll have Steve bring your truck back, too.”
“Thanks.” He opened the door and got out. The sun rested on the peaks of the mountains, but as far as Heath was concerned, the day was done. “C’mon, Gabe. Let’s go in and put an end to this shitty day.”
“Bye, Logan. Thanks for the ride.” With an almost-real smile for his brother, Gabe took Heath’s hand and climbed out of the truck.
*****
Heath closed the door as Gabe sat on the stool to pull off her boots. She dropped them in a heap next to the boot shelf and then simply sat there, staring at nothing.
The adrenaline of the fight with—no, the beating of—Black had pushed the effects of the booze out of his blood. He was exhausted, but he was sober as a judge.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to be.
For now, though, he crouched before Gabe and picked up her hands. “I’m sorry about…hell, more shit than I can name. But for right now, I’m sorry I scared you. I will never hurt you, Gabe. I swear.”
She turned their hands so that his knuckles were on top. His right hand was torn up and swelling noticeably, and his left didn’t look much better. He’d always been one to hit his target’s face. He knew the conventional wisdom that body blows were safer for the hitter, that the face was hard and full of sharp objects, but the fact was, when he threw a punch, he was angry. He wasn’t boxing; he was fighting. Bashing somebody’s face in was more satisfying.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, almost too softly for Heath to hear.
He leaned in close. “What don’t you understand, little one?”
She only shook her head. When she tried to pull her hands from his and stand up, Heath held her in place.
“What don’t you understand?”
“Anything,” she sighed. “I’m too drunk for this conversation. I’m tired. And I smell like beer and horseshit.”
He couldn’t decide how drunk she truly yet was. Her speech sounded nearly normal, though her tone was weary and dejected. Her eyes focused readily, but that look he hated had taken them over.
Heath was suddenly seriously worried. Whatever she was feeling, it went deeper than the shitty day. He knew if he let it, it would come between them.
There was no way on earth he would sit back and lose her. So the day wasn’t over. He needed to find a way to salvage it, to give them something good before they called the day done.
“Will you let me draw you a bath?”
She met his eyes, and they held like that for several long seconds. Heath tried to read her love in hers and tried to send his love through his.
Finally, she smiled, just a little, but real. “That would be nice.”
*****
The morning after Gabe had moved in, before he’d gone up to the Moondancer and caused all manner of trouble up there, Heath had gone over to his sister’s and asked her to take Gabe out and do some shopping. That damn little duffel bag she’d lugged everywhere drove him crazy, holding everything she owned in the world. He wanted her to have things. Not because the things themselves were so important, but because you couldn’t settle in anywhere if everything you could call your own fit in a three-foot long nylon duffel. You had to spread out before you could grow roots.
They’d both known Gabe well enough already to know that she’d resist the idea. She’d been saving up her money for a car, and she wouldn’t spend it on any
thing she didn’t consider essential. No more than she would sit back and let Emma buy it for her. So Heath and Emma had sat down at her kitchen counter that morning and made up a list of things Emma thought were important, and she said she’d shop for those things herself and pay attention to where Gabe’s eyes and hands landed while they did.
When he’d come back to the ranch that evening, he’d stopped by his sister’s first. She’d made up a basket of the things she’d bought for Gabe, ranging from a surprisingly ornate silver picture frame to a coffee mug, to towels in a soft yellow and white stripe, to a set of smelly bath stuff—a candle and a few bottles of stuff. And a tooled-leather journal.
Heath had given Gabe the basket first, hoping the gifts would soften the blow of the news he had about what he’d done up at the Moondancer, something she had directly asked him not to do.
They hadn’t. And she’d been a little mad about the gifts, too. But she’d set the frame out on the nightstand on what had become her side of the bed, and a few days later, there was a photo in it of the two of them, one he hadn’t even known had been taken. She used the coffee mug every morning, and she’d washed and set out the towels. As far as he knew, she hadn’t started using the journal, but maybe that was just private.
As for the smelly stuff, she used it a lot, and it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. It wasn’t flowery or anything, and he kind of liked it himself. Sandalwood.
Alone in the bathroom, after he cleaned up the mess of his hands—they looked a little less awful once the blood was gone—Heath drew a hot bath and squeezed some of the sandalwood bubble oil into the water, under the running faucet. While the tub filled, he lit the candle and set it on the window sill.
The sun had dipped below the mountains, so they were in that dusky stage before true sundown, when the whole ranch was in shadow but the tops of the trees still glowed bright gold. Heath stood at the window and took in the view, flexing his hands absently, working out their ache.
Before Gabe, he’d been drowning in his own misery for years, but before he’d lost Ruthie, he’d been happy. For his whole life. He loved his family, he loved the ranch, he loved the town. Even his fury and sense of betrayal at Sybil’s infidelity had only been a surface scratch; in the very midst of it, he’d known he’d recover and be happy again, because he had his family. He’d had his little girl.
And then he hadn’t, and the world had turned dark and desolate.
Gabe had brought him back from that. Just—Jesus, just coming into town, she’d woken him up. She’d brought sunlight back, like she’d carried it with her in that damn duffel bag. Now he had her, he knew her, he loved her. She loved him. He could feel happiness tickling the tips of his fingers, so close he could almost catch hold.
But she wasn’t happy. She needed a home, and all he’d been able to give her was a place to live.
“The tub’s going to run over.”
“Shit.”
Gabe’s voice had yanked him out of his musing, and he stepped over and shut off the water. The bubbles were heaped about a foot higher than the edge of the tub. He dipped his hand down until he found the water level—about two inches from the rim. Too full for a person, but fuck it. The tile would wipe up.
He turned to Gabe, who stood in the doorway, naked. Christ, she was beautiful. Her body had changed a bit since he’d first seen her naked; there was new definition in her arms and legs, the result of riding Phoebe regularly.
Heath was glad he’d raised the filly even after Ruthie was gone, because she and Gabe made a good pair.
Though he was instantly hard at the sight of her, he didn’t mean the bath to be anything but relaxing for her. He went over and set his hands on her hips. “It’s ready to go. You want a thing to put your hair up?”
She shook her head. Tendrils swept lightly back and forth over her dark little nipples. Damn.
He cleared his throat. “Okay. I’ll leave you to it. You want me to bring you in some water or juice?”
“Wait.” She picked up his right hand and brushed her thumb over his scraped knuckles—her touch stung a little, but he wouldn’t have stopped her even if it had felt like fire. “Will you wash me?”
Gabe very much enjoyed a soaking bath. In fact, if her hair had been more manageable, she might have taken only baths. He’d washed her a few times, and every time it had been, or become, foreplay.
“Are you sure you want me to?”
There was no hesitation in her nod. So he swept her into his arms and set her into the tub. The water sloshed over the side and wet his jeans. When she was settled, he discarded his clothes as quickly as he could, then reached for one of her yellow-and-white washcloths and the sea sponge that had also been in Emma’s basket.
She rested against the sloped side of the big tub, flipping her hair so it dangled over the side. With her eyes closed, she breathed deep, and Heath knelt on the mat beside the tub and sank the sponge through the bubbles, into the water, and let it fill to sopping.
The bubbles obscured his view of her lovely body, and he brushed a mound of them to the other side of the tub. He washed her gently, running the sponge over her shoulders, down her arms, across her chest, her belly, her legs. Though he was hard as steel, achingly hard, he avoided the parts of her that would lead them in other directions. He didn’t know how drunk she still was, or how scared—even now. She was too withdrawn for him to know.
As he held her leg in his hands and smoothed the sponge over her calf, she asked, “How is it different?”
He looked back to her face, but she hadn’t opened her eyes. Her expression was relaxed. “How is what different?”
“What you did to Brandon Black, and what my father did to my family.”
If she’d jumped up and hit him, he wouldn’t have been more surprised—or hurt. He dropped her leg and the sponge, and their splash hit him in the face and chest. “What?”
She opened her eyes and answered in no other way.
“Jesus, Gabe. You think I’m like your father?” His heart raced and his head roared. How could she think such a thing?
“Tell me how you’re not.”
“Tell me why you could think I am!” He stood and grabbed his jeans, far too shocked and vulnerable to continue this discussion naked. He stuffed his legs into the denim and shoved his—now completely soft—cock in, but didn’t bother to close the fly.
“Why do you keep beating him up so bad?”
The worst thing was how calm her voice was, how collected. Like she was simply curious. But this was why she’d looked so scared when she’d seen him on Black: she saw her father in him. A mass murderer. Who’d tried to kill her, too.
“He let my daughter die in a fire. He ran away and left her and my wife to burn alive. He killed my little girl. I know I’m not reasonable about him, but it’s just him. And he deserves it.”
“You were yelling that you were going to kill him. Over and over, you said it. Does he deserve to die?”
Heath didn’t remember yelling anything after he’d gotten started with the beating, but he knew that if Logan and Steve hadn’t pulled him off, he wouldn’t have stopped until his arms gave out. “Yes. He does. He let Ruthie burn to death. Gabe, my God.”
She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest. “You’re angry. He ruined your life. Caused you terrible pain. I understand all of that. He’s an awful person. My dad would have said the same about my grandparents and my mom—not with the same cause, but with the same certainty. My dad didn’t shoot up a random restaurant. He wasn’t trying to be a killer. He was after revenge. He wanted to make the people who hurt him pay. He wanted a justice he thought he deserved and couldn’t get anywhere else. He lost sight of everything but that, and I got caught up in it.”
Obviously, she wasn’t drunk anymore. What she’d said made a horrible, overwhelming kind of sense, and Heath reeled back until he hit the wall, then slid down into a crouch. He bent his head low; he couldn’t risk meeting her eyes.
“Am I going
to get caught up in your justice, Heath?”
“Shut up, Gabe. Shut up, shut up.” He covered his ears with his hands like a child.
“I need to know. I need to find somewhere I can feel safe.” At last, emotion had entered her voice, and Heath hazarded a glance in her direction again. Big brown eyes, haunted but resolute, stared back. “I love you, but you make me afraid.”
“I’m sorry.” Grief and shock had made his muscles taut, and the words came out with little more than breath to impel them. “God. I don’t want you to be scared. I will never hurt you. You are safe with me. I swear. I swear. On Ruthie’s memory, I swear.”
He wanted that alone, his most solemn promise, to convince her, but her expression didn’t change. “You look like him when you’re beating Black. There’s a thing that happens in your eyes and on your face. It happened to him, too. I don’t think you’d know if you hurt me until later.” She sighed and swept a mound of wilting bubbles up to cover her breasts. “Even if you never touch me, you could hurt me. It would hurt most if you killed him and spent the rest of your life in prison, away from me.”
Hearing cause for hope in her latest words, but still staggered from shocks coming from all directions in what she’d said before them, in the flaying truth of all that she’d said before, Heath crawled back to the tub. He slid a hand under her hair, around her neck, and he leaned in, bringing his face close to hers, staring hard into her eyes. “I’ll leave him alone. From now on. I’m not your father, Gabe. I won’t hurt you. I won’t leave you. I promise you. Please believe me.”
Her eyes searched his until Heath thought he’d lose his mind. “Okay.”
It wasn’t enough. He needed it said again. “I swear. You are safe with me.”
Her hand came out of the dying bubbles and cupped his cheek. “I believe you.”
If his body hadn’t been as tight as steel cables, he might have wept. Instead, he closed the last few inches between them and kissed her.
Somewhere (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 1) Page 18