by Nicole Helm
But he couldn’t seem to let it go, much as part of him wanted to. Life was complicated, much as he hated that. But he was a practical man, and complicated could get solved if you faced it head-on. “I think I should know, Cora. If I’m going to be part of your and Micah’s lives, I think I should know what happened with his father. At least the basics. At least so I don’t end up saying the wrong thing to either of you.”
“You won’t.”
“I’d like to know, and in return, I’ll tell you why I’ve kept myself guarded. It’s something I haven’t told . . . anyone. Not the whole story.”
She blinked up at him over that. “No one?”
He shook his head. “Not a living soul. My mom knows a few pieces, and Gavin knows a few other pieces, but no one knows the whole of it. I don’t like talking about it. It’s embarrassing as hell. But maybe it’d be good for us, to start on an open and honest foundation.”
Again she looked down at the ground. He almost told her to forget it, to shove all those words back in his mouth and go back to sex and pizza and fun.
“He just didn’t love us,” she said in a small voice before he could.
“And you loved him?”
She made a scoffing sound. “I . . . I thought I did. I was desperate for someone to love me.” She swallowed and waved a hand. “That can’t make any sense to you, what with the family you have, but growing up I only ever had Lilly. So I just wanted someone who loved me, except I was too young and too dumb to know what love really is.”
“No, I think I do understand that.”
She gave him the most doleful look, reminding him for a second of Micah and his near-teenage disdain for so many things. “You had your mother and a whole big family and a ranch, Shane. You don’t have to pretend you understand. It was a long time ago. I’m over it now.”
“I did have a loving family. You’re right. Maybe if my father hadn’t died, I’d be oblivious, but he did die, and when he did I felt a lot of . . .” Shane wouldn’t let the emotion clog his throat. He simply wouldn’t. He’d be straightforward and plain and then maybe . . .
He’d loved Mattie and had wanted a life with her, but he hadn’t been honest with her. Not about himself and how he felt, certainly not about what had happened with Dad. So, he’d do it differently this time. He’d give himself to Cora, and then it’d have to work out. Because she’d give herself back. If he did it all right, she’d have to.
Chapter Eighteen
Cora couldn’t believe she was standing in her room, naked under her robe, after some seriously awesome sex talking about . . . this.
Feelings and heartbreak and awful pasts. She didn’t want this, and she was more than grateful for her promise to Micah or she might have given in, given it all over to Shane, and where would that have left her?
It had been a long time ago, and she wanted nothing from then touching her life now. The only reason she’d given him the vague answer she’d given him was because . . . Well, she wanted Shane. The whole of him. His past hurts and scars and the crazy idea he could understand her, even if he didn’t know all the pieces.
Maybe it was selfish, and maybe it was wrong, but she wanted all of his pieces. All for herself.
“I felt a lot of responsibility when my dad died,” Shane said carefully, as though each word were chosen individually, with great thought. “I took a lot on myself, and because of that my family became more of a . . . Burden isn’t the right word, but I didn’t see myself as equal or as part of it. I was the protector. Finding someone who didn’t need me to be that, well, I let that skew my thinking.”
“She didn’t love you?”
He blew out a breath and raked a hand through his hair, this gorgeous, tall, broad-shouldered man who only wore faded navy boxers.
“We dated in high school. I think we loved each other, as much as you can when you’re a teenager anyway. Graduation loomed. I wanted to get married, and she wanted to go to and finish vet school first. It seemed reasonable. I’d be the rancher. She’d be the vet.”
“She sounds perfect,” Cora muttered, trying not to sound as petulant as she felt. Failing at it.
Shane laughed, bitterly, and Cora knew that shouldn’t have soothed her, but it did.
“Uh, no. End of her sophomore year of college, she lost her scholarship, failed a few classes. Her parents cut her off, but she came to me crying about how she needed to prove she could do this. One of the stipulations of my father’s will was that we each be afforded a certain amount of money, a trust fund of sorts, that we’d get at twenty-one, with the idea we’d buy or build our own place, on the ranch or off.”
“Shane,” Cora said on an exhale, afraid she knew where this was going. Maybe it was silly to hurt for him when she’d been beaten by the man she’d wanted to love, but Shane was so good. A betrayal like being used? It didn’t seem fair.
“I figured we were going to be partners,” he continued, standing a few feet away from Cora. “And she wouldn’t mind living with Mom for a few years while we made it back. Long story short, she didn’t have much intention of coming back home, of marrying me. I’m not sure she ever graduated. I paid for that semester and then she . . . disappeared. Well, I mean, not disappeared. Her parents knew where she was and all. She just stopped talking to me.”
“She’s the worst,” Cora said emphatically. “I’d spit in her eye if I ever saw her.”
Shane’s mouth curved, just a pinch, though that heavy, something like guilty look remained in his expression. “It’s possible that’s part of why I’m a little concerned about Ben.”
“Possible, yeah. I think I get that.” Not that she had any doubt his behavior toward Ben had been based on anything other than that protective instinct. How could she find that so appealing and so bone-deep frightening all at the same time?
“Mom knows I lost the money. Gav knows I was pretty messed up over it for a while. Somehow made it worse that Molly went off and married some dipshit who did much of the same thing. And I never told her, you know? I never told her that Mattie took off on me, and I should have. Maybe Molly would have listened and not gotten suckered into the whole thing.”
“Well, if she was in love, or thought herself to be, and her big brother was lecturing her, probably not,” Cora offered, hoping to ease some of that guilt somehow. Someway. “I didn’t listen to Lilly, and . . .” I got into a lot worse relationships than one where I was stolen from.
It was the strangest thing inside of her, the want to tell him, the utter fear that kept those words locked down tight. The promise she’d made to Micah.
“Why don’t you come here?” he murmured.
She was feeling all too teary, but none of her flippant changes of subject had worked before. So, she took the few steps to cross the room to him and let him pull her into the warmth of his body.
Her shoulders relaxed somehow, that odd band in her chest loosening. He kissed her temple. A good man. One who somehow thought she was something special. Worthy of his secrets. Her.
“So, all there is to the Micah’s dad story is that he didn’t love you guys?” he asked gently.
Cora stiffened, but she considered it progress she didn’t pull away. “He didn’t love us or want us,” she said, and that was good enough. More than enough of that story. That was the bottom line. All Stephen had ever wanted out of her was someone to control. “I spent too long trying to make him,” she whispered, the words sliding past her clogged throat. She was giving him too much, and the only thing stopping her from going further was her promise to Micah. His bone-deep certainty it would change everything.
Because it would, if Shane saw them as victims. It would change everything. “Guess I have a few of my own daddy issues.” Which was the wrong thing to say, not because it suggested the tragic loss of his father was an “issue,” but because he pulled slightly away, looking at her with those too-soft brown eyes.
“You haven’t mentioned your dad,” he said, again so gentle. Careful. As if she wo
uld shatter. God help her if he ever found out what she really was. He probably wouldn’t even touch her. He’d be too afraid to break her.
But she wasn’t broken. She couldn’t let him think she was. “Technically my mom, Lilly, and I were my father’s secret family,” Cora offered with the best nonchalant shrug she could muster. “He’d swoop in with candy and pretty dresses every so often, never with anything that would keep Mom from having to work three jobs to keep us afloat, then he’d swoop out again.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that would be on a little girl.”
“I had Lilly to offset it,” Cora said firmly. “And, yeah, I chased the wrong kind of guy and the wrong kind of attention there for awhile, but Micah changed my life. I’m not that desperate, needy girl anymore.” At least on the outside.
She shoved that nasty Mom-sounding voice away and met his gaze with a cool, detached one of her own. “Childhoods and heartbreaks shape us, yeah, but kids shape you too. If you love your kid, parenthood shapes you into something better and stronger than you ever thought you could be.” And she was strong for Micah, finally, after all these years. Because she was going to keep her promise to him, and she was going to have Shane and a career, and it was going to all work out. She wouldn’t allow herself to bail or fail or sabotage. Not this time.
Shane’s mouth brushed hers, soft and sweet, hands cupping her face. Not as though she were weak or fragile or something to be treated carefully, but as though she were important and central.
“I’m glad we talked,” he said, still holding her face. “I said this about Ben, but it’s true here too. It’s because of you. Talking and dealing is not a Tyler strong point, and I wouldn’t have acted on it then or now without your giving me a little nudge.”
She smiled up at him, but inwardly all she could think was you only have yourself to blame. “Well, I’m glad. Now, if you don’t get some food in me soon, I’m going to faint.”
“I’ll catch you,” he offered cheerfully, and she had no doubt he would. A wonderful promise.
And a tiny little wiggle of impending doom.
* * *
Shane spent the night against his better judgment. He needed to be back at the ranch and ready to work by six at the latest, but Cora had been snuggled up to him, half asleep, telling him not to go.
What was a man to do?
No matter how late they’d stayed up, or how many times they’d turned to each other in the middle of the night, his internal clock was a powerful thing. Cora’s room was still dark, but he was wide-awake.
He wasn’t sure which was worse, the litany of chores he was missing piling up in his brain, or the scent of flowers and warm, soft skin next to him, making every single ranch thought vanish.
He was a practical man with serious responsibilities, and he did not have the kind of life or brain where shirking those would be easy.
But he wasn’t used to having to resist anything, and Cora was quite the impossible thing to resist.
He shifted in the bed, and she yawned, snuggling deeper into the pillow. “Have to go, don’t you?” she murmured, half muffled by the pillow her head was buried into.
“Better,” he replied, running his palm over her tangled hair. “Come by tonight for dinner with Micah.”
She yawned, her eyes opening, then fluttering closed again as if she just didn’t have the energy to keep them open. “Isn’t that a lot? Don’t you want some space?”
He slid out of bed, grabbing his jeans. “Why would I want space from you guys?” He pulled on the jeans, watching her as she struggled in that half-asleep, half-awake middle ground.
“But . . .”
“Come by for dinner. We can talk all you want about space then. And maybe sneak off and make out somewhere.”
Her mouth curved. “’Kay, you convinced me.”
He leaned down and gave her one quick peck on the cheek, wanting to linger and not allowing himself the pleasure. There was work to be done at home, and she’d be by later tonight.
He found his shirt and pulled it on, slipping out of her room. He found his cowboy hat and slid it onto his head before working on buttoning up the shirt as he walked down the stairs.
He looked rumpled and rather walk-of-shamed, but hopefully he could get back to the ranch early enough to avoid any familial prying.
He stepped onto the porch, pulling the door closed and making sure it locked. The world was still dark except for the faintest hint of light far away in the distance. He just might make it.
He drove through empty morning Gracely, though the lights in Em’s bakery were already on. He possibly slid a little lower in his seat, despite the fact that she’d likely recognize his truck if she looked out and happened to see him drive past.
He sank lower still in his seat when he crossed the threshold of the Tyler ranch. And yeah, maybe he took the side way instead of the main drive, and maybe he parked his truck next to the stables and then hurried in a jog to the house in the hopes someone might fall for him already having been up and around.
Boone probably would have had no problem walking through the front door, bold and defiant, but Shane didn’t have it in him. Not even because he was embarrassed, but because he didn’t want his mouthy family saying anything that might embarrass Cora. And, Lord, was his family mouthy.
Shane slipped in through the back door, being careful to shut it quietly and flip the locks back as noiselessly as possible. He took two steps toward the stairs.
“Where have you been?”
“Jesus.” Shane jumped a foot at the unexpected voice of his mother, and, when he slowly turned, Mom, Grandma, and Molly were all sitting around the seldom-used kitchen table, calmly sipping coffee.
Mom raised an eyebrow as Shane accepted his fate and stepped into the doorway of the kitchen.
“Seems to me you’re sneaking in rather than heading out.” She watched him over the edge of her mug.
“Seems to me those were the clothes you were wearing last night when you hightailed it out of here,” Grandma said, also holding her mug up to her mouth.
Shane scowled at Molly. “What’s your observation?” he grumbled.
But she smiled sweetly. “You look happy.”
He grunted, because he didn’t know what to say to all that. “Gonna shower,” he muttered, turning away and moving out of the kitchen opening.
“Heed my advice,” Grandma called after him. “Lock that girl down quick.”
“Grandma’s right,” Molly added, even as Shane trudged up the stairs. “Plenty of nice-looking cowboys out there could sweep her off her feet.”
“Ha.” The thing was, locking Cora down didn’t seem like such a bad idea. But he didn’t have much to offer, and hadn’t he made a few mistakes when deciding he was all in long before the other person did?
Hell, Cora had been asking about space just this morning, while she’d still been half asleep. Maybe he needed to heed the warnings of his past and slow down a bit.
He just had the sneaking suspicion that once she was in his orbit again, he wouldn’t be able to help himself.
Chapter Nineteen
Cora hummed to herself as she drove up to Mile High headquarters to pick up Micah. She’d had a perfect day. Awash in a post-sex, post-sleep-in morning, she’d ticked off just about every stray errand and chore on her to-do list.
Once she got Micah home and showered, she had a dinner with the Tylers to look forward to. Micah got to hang out with his beloved horses, and the world seemed aglow with goodness and possibility.
Which was far too good to be true.
She forced that Debbie Downer thought out of her head as she pulled her car into the lot of Mile High Adventures. Sam, Hayley, and Micah were unloading things out of the Jeep.
She got out of the car, gratified when Micah grinned at her and scrambled over. All limbs and enthusiasm. Thank God.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, pulling him into a hug.
He let her hug him for about a second, t
hen bounced out of her reach. “We saw a bear! Seriously!”
“From hundreds of yards away with my very high-powered binoculars,” Sam assured Cora, still unloading things from his Jeep.
“It was so cool.” Micah happily took the backpack Hayley handed him. “Hey, before we head home do you think we could stop by the ranch and see the horses?”
“Well, matter of fact, Shane asked us if we wanted to come over for dinner tonight.”
There was the slightest hesitation at the mention of Shane, but the horses must have won out because Micah nodded. “Cool.”
“I’m going to go give the babies hugs first. Coming?”
“Eh, sure, I guess,” Micah said with a negligent shrug, but Micah had shocked the heck out of her when the twins were born. Oh, he acted tough and uninterested, but, any time an adult wasn’t paying too close attention, that boy gave them nothing but love. “I have to help set up the tents to air out first.”
She gave him another squeeze before he wriggled out of it. “My little responsible camper.”
Micah groaned on his way over to help Sam and Hayley heft stuff out of the Jeep and then to the backyard of Mile High Adventures, where they’d do whatever they did with tents and tools. Cora tried not to know.
She headed inside and offered a greeting to Skeet, who merely grunted at her from his near-permanent spot behind the reception desk. He was wearing a T-shirt that read my dog ate your stick-figure family.
“Skeet, how do you feel about swords?”
The old man’s white eyebrows drew together as he stared at her. “Huh?”
“I think I have the perfect woman for you.”
Skeet scowled and made a shooing motion. “Lilly’s in her office.”
Grinning to herself, Cora walked through the main room and to the little hallway that led to the individual offices. She didn’t bother knocking on Lilly’s door since Lilly sometimes had the babies sleeping in there.