“I told you I’m looking for a couple of rounds with the imbecile.” Dusty lifted his fists and bent his knees. “Come on, you moron. If you’re going to hang out here, you need to toughen up.” He jabbed at Nate’s shoulder.
Nate absorbed the blow, his body twisting. Again, Nate looked at Bobby.
Dusty sneered. “A man who’s scared of his own shadow couldn’t possible keep Kaitlyn happy.” He jabbed again. “Come on, fight!”
Part of Kaitlyn wanted Nate to get mad and rise to the challenge, but the more rational part was scared he would. He’d be no match against Dusty. She’d seen him fight. He was fast and tough. “Stop it, Dusty!” Annoyed because her cell phone lay on the shelf behind Nate, she still said, “Get out, or I’ll call the cops.”
Nate finally spoke, although his eyes didn’t leave Dusty. “It’s OK. He had power cereal for breakfast, and now he thinks he’s a big shot.”
“Nate. Shut up.” Kaitlyn ground her teeth in frustration.
Nate paid no attention to her. “Takes more than a big mouth and a lot of hot air to make a man.”
Dusty growled. “I’m gonna hit you. Put your hands up and fight like a man, or go down like the dog you are.”
Nate’s fists clenched, and he lifted a little onto his toes.
A shock of fear sparked in Kaitlyn’s chest.
But then his body relaxed. As though he forced himself to calm. His hands hung loosely at his side.
With a roar Dusty hooked a right into Nate’s jaw that sent him stumbling backward. Straightening, Nate looked at Bobby before deliberately turning back to Dusty. Then he jutted out his chin, angling his head, almost as though he were offering his face to Dusty again.
“You dirty…” Dusty swung at the offered cheek, and Nate again stumbled back.
“That’s enough!” Kaitlyn ran to Nate, slightly sick in her stomach. From the violence, but more from the absolute lack of self-defense. In her world, real men would never allow themselves to be pummeled without raising a finger to defend themselves.
Regardless, Nate had been nothing but kind to her, and she considered him a friend. She planted herself in front of Nate facing Dusty. “Get out!”
Nate’s voice rumbled in her ear. “Move.”
Kaitlyn whirled around. She grabbed the loose lapels of Tank’s coveralls with both shaking hands. “Don’t be stupid! He’ll pulverize you!”
But Nate wasn’t listening. His gaze flickered for an instant before he used one hand to sweep her behind him.
Dusty’s jab missed her by a fraction of an inch.
Nate moved so quickly, she wasn’t exactly sure what happened, but it couldn’t have been more than a blink later, and Dusty lay flat-out on the floor.
Nate’s gaze went to Bobby, who stood gaping at Dusty, before he turned to fully face her. Nate’s eyes burned into hers, and he held her upper arms. Although his grip was light, she felt invisible waves of unleashed power rippling off him. “It wasn’t that long ago that I asked you not to stand between me and the next guy.” His voice was low. Controlled.
She shivered. Then her anger and fear roared back to life. “Well, congratulations on knocking him down. Thankfully, he didn’t hit you hard, or you’d be the one lying on the floor.” She tried to peek her head around Nate’s broad shoulder to see if Dusty would spring back up and try for round two. Nate would see her getting between them again.
He shook her gently. “Maybe you’d better be a little more concerned about you.”
Her gaze flew back to his, vivid green, alive, and focused on her. She reached up and used one finger to dab at the spot of blood at the corner of his wide mouth.
His breath hitched.
Her heart tumbled, and bolts of heat shot through her chest, curling in her stomach. She moved to close the gap between them.
“I saw what you did, Nate!”
Kaitlyn jerked her hand back and broke eye contact with effort.
His hands slid down her arms, as though he was reluctant to let go.
He nodded once at Bobby, then turned to Dusty, who was slowly sitting up. Nate stuck out his hand.
Dusty’s lips pinched before he took it. He must have really cracked his head on the concrete floor to be so dazed.
“How about we step outside for a minute?” Nate shoved his hands into the pockets of the big coveralls as Dusty steadied himself on his feet.
Dusty tilted his head a little and studied Nate. After a minute, he nodded in assent, and they walked out.
Bobby skipped out with them, pulling one of Nate’s hands out of his pocket.
Kaitlyn watched them go, unsure of the odd sensations tumbling through her. Tenderness, the way one might feel about an adorable dog at the humane shelter, was one. Nate, with his out-of-place conservative clothes that were always too big, seemed to draw her protective instincts. But there was also this wicked attraction, and its basis might be in the unbending strength of his internal core. Physically lacking brawn, but the strength of character that seemed to be glaringly missing in so many men, showed in everything that Nate did. That juxtaposition of physical helplessness and internal strength…she would never have thought that it would be something so irresistibly attractive to her.
Like a mental stubbed toe, Kaitlyn remembered Tank. She couldn’t fall any farther without telling Nate what she’d done. Her chest started to ache from the idea that Nate might look at her with loathing. Kaitlyn set her phone on the shelf, glanced back at Gary who was still sleeping, and hurried out in time to see Nate shake Dusty’s hand before Dusty climbed into his pick-up. Kaitlyn snorted. From a bare-knuckle brawl to a handshake. Quite the relationship ride. Yeah, she definitely wanted to get to know Nate better. She’d keep her secret a little longer.
Dusty backed out, and Nate and Bobby turned to walk back into the garage.
Nate’s smile was tentative, as though he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be upset.
Kaitlyn took a deep breath. “I slept with Tank.”
10
Nate’s chest exploded, and the world shifted under his feet in a way that Dusty’s punch had not been able to perpetuate. He loosened his grip on Bobby’s hand and barely noticed when Bobby skipped away, running circles on the cement. “Clint told me after I took you home that first time.” His words sounded normal, but he felt as though he was speaking through a long tunnel. Why had she chosen now to tell him? “I didn’t want to believe him.”
Kaitlyn pulled both lips in and bit them. It was the first time since he’d met her that she looked unsure. Then her chin came up. She blinked. Tears? “Well, believe it. He’s got the pictures to prove it.”
“Yeah.” Nate said slowly. “That’s what he said.”
Kaitlyn tossed her ponytail back over her shoulder. “I’m sure you hate me now. And that’s fine. Thanks for your help.” Her voice broke a little on the last words, and she walked stiffly as if she was keeping from running away with effort.
“Wait.” He could hardly make his voice go above a whisper.
Kaitlyn stopped but didn’t turn around.
Half of him wanted to strangle her. But in a twist that scared the tar out of him, the other half was consumed with pain. Deep, sharp, stabbing, betraying pain. That, and the compassion that almost overwhelmed him when he saw the tears prick her tough-girl eyes, spoke volumes. Kaitlyn, wild, soft, tough, crazy, responsible, husband stealing Kaitlyn, had gotten to him. He shoved both hands through his hair. Man, he had tried not to let this happen. What did he do now? The September sunshine no longer felt warm but stifling. The air weighed on him like a lead blanket. He needed time and space to recover, to sort out the feelings and reactions that warred inside of him. “Call me if you need me for the boys or trucks.” He watched her slender back quiver, and then he walked toward his car.
“Where you going, Nate?” Bobby buzzed across the cement.
“Heading out for a while, bud.” Nate had a feeling that the smile he tried to give Bobby fell more into the grimace category.
“Can I come? Huh? Can I?” Bobby jumped up and down, stopping his buzzing only long enough to speak.
“Not this time.” Nate grabbed the latch of his car.
“Are you coming back?” The buzzing stopped, and Bobby’s little brows furrowed together.
Nate looked back at the garage. Kaitlyn had moved inside the open overhead door. Despite the shadow that encased her, he could see her hands moving on top of her head, as if she was fixing her ponytail. They stopped at Bobby’s question.
Nate clenched his jaw, feeling the muscles in his cheek bunch and burn where Dusty had hit him. His gaze moved down to Bobby, who looked up in concern, still and waiting on his answer. “Yeah. I’ll be back.”
~*~
Condensation frosted on the glass around Nate’s fingers. He studied his white knuckles as though the answers to the hot mess of his life were written in the faded scar lines that crisscrossed his skin. If only they were. He’d been sitting on this bar stool for three hours and he hadn’t figured out a thing. Except that bars were overrated. At least for being a balm for one’s soul. Once he managed to make it out the door, he wouldn’t be coming back. But he didn’t know where else to go. He could hardly sit in Tank’s and Eve’s house, surrounded by their stuff and the evidence of their life together while he contemplated the idea that he had been dangerously close to falling in love with the woman who might have wrecked it all.
The expected anger was overwhelmed by pain and frustration, which were beaten back by the most inexcusable urge to run to Kaitlyn and wipe her tears away. Because of that urge, he had to stop from climbing off the barstool three separate times.
A bottle clanked down beside his arm. Clint plopped onto the stool next to his. “She got you, didn’t she?”
Nate gripped the glass tighter and didn’t answer.
“A guy don’t come in here and mope around as long as you have unless he’s got girl trouble.” He took a long swig from his bottle and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I told you what she’d do.” He grunted. “Looks like she’s gone and done it.”
The thumping of some rap song beat along with the drone of voices. The bar had been almost empty when Nate had shown up. Now the place crawled with people moving in a haze of smoke. He studied his soda, hoping Clint would find someone else to bother.
“What’d she do? Sleep with you and then tell you to bug off?”
Nate didn’t answer.
That didn’t stop Clint. “It’s what she did to me in high school.” He laughed. “It’s what she’s done to pretty much every guy around.”
Nate tried to keep his face impassive, but he couldn’t help closing his eyes. If only his ears would close as easily.
“Except Tank.”
Nate lifted his eyes in surprise. “She didn’t sleep with Tank?”
Clint lifted a brow as he chugged from his bottle.
Nate noted with a bit of shock that it was root beer.
“That’s what she thinks.”
Nate’s stomach plummeted. “That’s what you told me.” Kaitlyn had told him, too.
Clint sat up straight, his chest puffed out, but he spoke out of the side of his mouth. “I doped ’em.”
“What?” Nate tried not to look horrified. He suddenly wanted Clint to spill his guts.
“Tank was the only guy around who actually thought Kaitlyn amounted to anything.” He grunted. “You should have seen Kaitlyn when Tank showed up married. Green, she was. Still, Tank treated her like a little sister.”
“Doesn’t sound to me as if he was too interested in sleeping with her, then.” Nate took a drink of his own soda to sooth his suddenly dry throat.
“Nah. Tank’s strange. We always thought he might swing the other way, if you know what I mean.” Clint winked, but his face lacked true humor. “It wasn’t too hard to get the stuff in their drinks after the company softball game.”
“You had to have help.”
“Yeah. One of Tank’s fly-by-night drivers got the stuff and gave me a hand getting them in bed. After that it was a piece of cake to snap the pictures.”
Nate’s chest burned, but he stared at his glass, trying to feign disinterest. “Does everyone know it was a setup?”
“Nope. They were both tipsy and everyone knew it. Plus, no one really cares for Kaitlyn anyway. Not after what she did to Kyle.”
Blood throbbed in Nate’s neck. He stared at his glass and enunciated each word clearly. “You did this to hurt Kaitlyn, I assume.”
Clint shrugged, but his smile was calculating. “It’s a small town, and people don’t take too kindly to marriage wreckers.”
Nate’s teeth ground together. “Did it occur to you that there were real people in that marriage who would be hurt right along with Kaitlyn?”
Clint waved a hand. “Eve’s a pushover. Tank could sleep with the entire Hallelujah Chorus, and Eve’s too much of a doormat to…”
The glass shattered in Nate’s hands. His barstool hit the floor as he surged to his feet. He fisted his hands in Clint’s shirt and pulled him close. Their noses were almost touching. “She’s my sister.” Behind him conversation stopped.
Clint’s eyes glittered. “I’m not apologizing. Kaitlyn deserved everything she got. And more.”
Nate tried to take a deep breath, but he ended up growling, “I’m going to the police.” He would handle this the right way.
“You can’t prove a thing.” Clint looked smug. “My word against yours.”
Nate pushed him away, and in one smooth motion, hooked a right. Clint flew back and landed spread eagle on the floor. So much for leaving his old life behind and creating a new reputation for himself. Once a fighter, always a fighter.
Nate threw money on the bar and turned to leave. A crowd had gathered around Clint, but Nate pushed through to the door. Kaitlyn hadn’t slept with his brother-in-law. The idea sent a rush of euphoria through him. But tempering that idea was that Nate hadn’t overcome his violent tendencies, either.
Dusk was falling as he pulled into Driver’s Door Trucking. Light showed from the windows of the house. Nate pulled in beside a car he didn’t recognize. He got out and strode to the house, knocking on the door, and hoping that the car wasn’t a boyfriend.
A young teenager wearing large hoop earrings answered. “Yeah?” The babysitter. She snapped her gum and glanced back down at the phone that glowed in her hand.
“Where’s Kaitlyn?”
“She took Bobby on the four-wheeler. There’s trails on the mountains behind the house.” She gestured vaguely and snapped her gum again. The baby monitor on the counter crackled with static.
“Thanks.” Nate turned and jumped off the porch. There were two four-wheelers behind the garage. Kaitlyn would only need one.
Five minutes later he was riding a freshly gassed up ATV toward the trail he’d seen the other day when he’d been at the house getting the boys breakfast. Hopefully, this was the one. He had no clue where it led or whether he’d be able to find Kaitlyn, but he felt a driving need to tell her what he’d found out. If he got lost in the mountains, well, he’d cross that bridge then.
It didn’t take long until the trail started angling up and the topography changed from fields to woods. It had been almost dark, but once he hit the tree line, night fell abruptly. The trees blocked out any light from the moon, and the rumble of the engine overrode any night sounds.
He rode until the trail forked. Unsure which way to go, he stopped, killed the motor and listened. A creek gurgled off to the left. Beyond that the soft drone of a motor carried on the breeze. Left, it was.
The trail was fairly straight. He assumed it was an old logging road, and before long he could see occasional glimpses of headlights. Shortly the trail flattened out and the trees thinned. The headlights ahead bobbed and weaved. Once he hit the clearing, he understood why: moonlight illuminated a mud pit and humps of dirt that could be jumps. The creek ran along the side.
Kaitlyn, with a helmeted Bobby clinging to her
back, ran through his headlights. She swerved around and stopped about twenty feet from where he sat. Colorless in the moonlight, her eyes still shone with animation. Her hair, windswept and disheveled, reflected the white light of the moon.
Nate’s heart thumped like a drum in his chest. Thoughts swirled around in his head, but his mouth remained firmly closed while his eyes drank her in.
“Nate! Kaitlyn, it’s Nate!!” The moonlight reflecting on Bobby’s helmet bobbed up and down. “Can I ride with Nate? Please? Can I?”
Nate drove over, stopping his machine alongside Kaitlyn’s. His eyes never left hers. “If it’s OK with your sister, hop on.”
Kaitlyn, her eyes troubled and confused, but her chin out, nodded.
“Oh, boy!” Bobby scrambled off.
Just loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the engines he said, “I’m sorry for running off.”
Her mouth fell open.
“Will you talk to me later?”
She recovered and closed her mouth. Curiosity tinged her features. “Yes.”
“All right, then. Show me how this is done.” Bobby’s arms slid around his waist and gripped tight.
Kaitlyn gunned her motor in response and took off.
“Hold tight, Bobby.”
“You’re a lot harder than Kaitlyn.” Bobby squeeze his arms to emphasize his point, and Nate smiled, although his arms ached. He’d like to find out for himself how soft Kaitlyn was. But he didn’t want to hurt her. Underneath that rugged exterior lay a soul that had been bruised and mangled. He didn’t know what, if anything, he could do. Clint was right—it was his word against Nate’s. Any evidence had been destroyed long ago, but Nate knew whose side he was on. He gunned his own motor, turning the handlebars and shifting his weight to fishtail the rear end.
Bobby screamed in delight.
He followed Kaitlyn to the stream, splashing through it, then back and onto the mud pit and jumps.
The warm air, the moon shining down, the darkness that shrank the world to just the three of them, the droning of the motors that blocked out all sound—it all combined to cocoon them in an almost dream world where they were engaged in a complicated dance. With their machines circling each other, occasional eye contact and sometimes a flash of teeth in a smile in the moonlight, they circled and weaved. Kaitlyn drove with elegance and grace, infused with the confidence of a woman who’d grown up running equipment. Nate watched her, admiring.
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