by Fiona Lowe
“Hunter?” She automatically glanced at the clock to check if she’d lost track of the time and was late picking him up. She pushed up off her knees and to her feet just as he appeared. “You’re home early. Is everything okay?”
He shrugged. “Beau came into town to visit his mom, so he brought me home.”
“That was kind of him.” There were so many kind and thoughtful things about Beau McCade that she kept pinching herself to be sure that he was real and not some imaginary guy she’d dreamed up to keep her company at night.
And oh boy, in one way or another, he kept her company at night. The few times they’d managed to meet up at Ty’s house when he was out on the range, she got to be cradled in Beau’s strong arms and lie against his work-toned body. Those times, she knew he was real. But between his long hours on the ranch and her long hours at the diner and both of their family commitments, those stolen moments in the middle of the night were too few and far between. As much as she enjoyed the sexting, it wasn’t the same as being with him.
Rastas padded over to her and sat at her feet, her eyes big and brown, ever hopeful of a treat. “You think if you look cute, I’ll give in and feed you.”
Rastas licked her hand and she patted her head. “She really is cute. You’re doing a great job with her, Hunter.”
“I’ve taught her some really dope tricks. Do you wanna see?”
“I’d love to.” She pulled off her gloves and followed Hunter out into the yard.
He pulled some dog treats out of his pocket and Rastas raced around his feet, barking. “Sit.” Rastas sat. “Good dog.” He gave her a treat. “Stay.” Hunter turned and walked a couple of yards before stopping and facing the pup. “Back up, Rastas.”
The dog looked at him and thumped her tail on the ground.
Hunter took two steps toward her. “Back up.” Rastas rose and took two steps backward. “Now sit.” She sat and Hunter rewarded her with “good dog” and a treat.
Shannon clapped. “That’s so awesome.”
Hunter’s smile was wide and proud. “She can do more.”
Over the next five minutes he had Rastas stand, take a bow, shake a paw and spin and beg.
“That must have taken you hours.”
He shrugged. “I do it at lunch when Beau’s practicing his talking.”
She stared at him, clueless as to what he meant. “His talking?”
“Yeah. He reads out loud. I thought it was pretty weird at first but I got used to it.”
“What does he read?”
“Stuff.”
She laughed. “Obviously, but what sort of stuff? Ranching stuff?”
He shook his head. “Nah. He read a book about some kid who built a raft.”
Surprise shot through her. “Huckleberry Finn?”
“Yeah, like those pies you make.”
Hunter wasn’t a reader, so she was interested to hear what he thought of the classic story. “Did you enjoy it?”
“It was okay. It was pretty cool how Huck didn’t have to go to school.”
Trust her boy to think that. “Has Beau read anything else?”
“A crazy book about a pig and a spider.”
“Charlotte’s Web.” She smiled at the memories that story evoked. “That was a favorite book of mine when I was in middle school.”
“The animals in it were funny, and I liked the rat best.” He ruffled Rastas’s ears. “It was sad at the end when the spider died.”
“I always cried at the end. So what’s he reading now?” She expected Beau was revisiting another classic like The Old Man and the Sea or The Chronicles of Narnia.
“This one’s about a boy who’s a wizard.”
Hunter had seen all the movies about the world’s most famous boy wizard, but he hadn’t read the books. The fact Beau was reading them was unexpected. “Beau’s reading Harry Potter?”
“No. This one’s about a boy who lives in a place where the only way to practice magic is to write down the spells. He can’t do that and then he realizes he’s been cursed by some evil magic that’s taking over the world. He has to stay alive long enough to work out how to break the curse, write the magic and save the world. It’s good but Beau’s been too busy cutting hay to read the last couple of days.”
Shannon’s throat tightened with shock, making it hard to speak. Hunter appeared oblivious to the fact he’d just described his own learning problem. Beau wasn’t practicing speaking by reading out loud; he was reading to her son. Showing him that words on a page could be enjoyed by listening—free of the struggle to assemble the letters and compute them in his mind.
Her guarded heart that held everyone except Hunter at bay opened. She was fast falling in love with Beau McCade.
—
BEAU hated hospitals. Truth be told, he feared them, but his father had told him that Bonnie wanted to see him. She wanted to see each one of his siblings on their own. That alone scared the hell out of him. He’d scrubbed his boots clean and showered and changed into fresh clothes before coming to visit, but right now, sitting in a chair next to Bonnie and wearing a paper gown, a mask and gloves, he was petrified it wasn’t enough to keep her safe.
Germs from the ranch, from the hospital, from the air were like incendiary bombs to her. Josh had explained to everyone how chemotherapy couldn’t tell the difference between the good cells and the cancer cells and just nuked them all. Right now, Bonnie had no resistance to infection. Everyday bugs that healthy people took for granted could kill her, and right now they were doing a good job trying.
The beep of a monitor displaying her heartbeat and a heap of other numbers he didn’t understand glowed green, and two IV lines pumped fluid and antibiotics into her. The elastic of an oxygen mask broke the line of her pale and jaundiced cheek.
If Beau had thought she’d looked sick when she was at home three days ago, it was nothing compared to now. “Mom?”
She opened her eyes and reached out her hand.
“I don’t th . . . th . . . th . . .” God he hated this mask on his face, suffocating his speech. He hauled in a breath. “I don’t think . . . I should touch you.”
She pulled the oxygen mask down. “Of course you should.”
He wrapped his gloved hand around her now unfamiliarly thin hand, dwarfing it in his broader one. He remembered back across twenty-seven years to the night he’d arrived at Coulee Creek. How she’d kneeled down on the kitchen floor and hugged him tight and stroked his hair with her very capable and caring hands. It was the first time in his life he remembered feeling safe. He didn’t feel safe now. He felt terrified he was going to lose her. “Are you feeling any better?”
She squeezed his hand, her fingers lacking strength. “I want to say yes.”
His fear coalesced in his belly. She’d always been the one who reassured him. She’d always believed in him and seen his intelligence behind his slow and lumbering speech. She’d insisted that he was the one in charge of his stutter, not the other way around, and she’d been the one to drive the hundreds of miles over the years, taking him to speech therapy. She’d introduced him to the magic of books, encouraged him to go to college and had always been his champion, often knowing what he needed before he did.
“How’s Shannon?”
The question caught him off guard. He’d been expecting the usual inquiry about the ranch. “Um . . . she’s . . . um . . . good . . . I guess.”
Bonnie gave him a mother’s knowing look. “I know the two of you are seeing each other.”
They’d been so careful. “How do you know?”
“I’m your mother. I might be sick, honey, but I’m not blind or deaf. Trucks that arrive and depart in the middle of the night are noisy.”
He wanted to say Katrina’s part of that noise, too, but the two of them had an unspoken pact about their comings and goings when they met in the kitchen at odd hours of the night.
“You think you’re being secretive, but really, you’re not.”
Stunned,
he stared at her over the top of the mask, not knowing what to say.
Bonnie laughed, but it quickly turned into a racking cough.
Half gut instinct, half pure anxiety, he carefully wrapped his arms around her and lifted her forward so she could catch her breath. When she’d recovered, she patted his hand.
“Does Shannon make you happy?”
How could he tell her that in one way he was the happiest he’d ever been when she was lying here fighting off death as it clawed into her and held fast?
As if reading his mind, she said, “Beau, it’s okay. All I’ve ever wanted is for my children to be happy. If you’ve finally met the woman I’ve been hoping you’d meet for years, the timing doesn’t matter. I don’t want any nonsense about bad timing. If you love her, tell her. If I beat this, I’ll welcome her with open arms at Coulee Creek. If I don’t, promise me you’ll bring her anyway.”
Tears burned the backs of his eyes, and his throat was so thick he could hardly speak. “You’ll be there . . . w-w-when I bring . . . her home. You have . . . to be.”
Bonnie patted his hand as her eyes fluttered closed.
—
THE radio was blasting out eighties rock in Shannon’s kitchen as she and Hunter sang loudly and out of tune. She couldn’t stop smiling. It was well over a year since he’d joined her in dishwashing karaoke, and tonight, he’d been the one to suggest it. If she’d been given a gift of a diamond necklace, its sparkling facets would have paled in comparison to the joy she was experiencing right now. First he’d shown her the tricks he’d taught Rastas and now this. It gave her hope that he was coming back to her.
“Mom?”
She hefted the lasagna dish out of the suds and onto the dish rack. “Yes.”
“Can I go to the skate park?”
“I guess so.”
“Cool. I want to show the guys Rastas.”
She glanced at the clock. It would be light out until well past ten, but that was way too late for him to be coming home. She braced herself for the whining. “Be back by nine fifteen.”
“Okay.”
Okay? “Okay.”
He dropped the dishcloth and called Rastas. Boy and dog raced out the door together equally excited.
Was this a turning point? Was this period of him being disconnected over? God, she hoped so, because when Hunter was miserable, she was, too. The last two hours had been the most fun they’d had together in a long, long time.
Enjoyable time with Hunter. You’ve had a lot of enjoyable times with Beau.
And she had. Hopefully, there’d be many more. She wiped down the counters, and when everything was neat and clean, just the way she liked it, she picked up her phone with the plan of texting Beau to thank him for reading to Hunter.
That’s the sort of thing you need to say in person.
There was a knock on the kitchen window and she spun around with a start to catch a glimpse of Beau’s hat, and then he was through the back door and standing in her kitchen.
He was dressed as if for a night on the town—clean jeans, silver belt buckle, a turquoise, black and white western shirt and boots that gleamed. He’d just come from the hospital and sadness radiated off of him. “Hey.”
She walked over to him. “Hey yourself. How’s your mom doing?”
He shook his head. “Not good. She’s tired. Too . . . tired . . . to . . . fight.”
She heard his battle to force every word past his grief, and she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her head against his chest, wishing she could do something to change Bonnie’s condition. “Oh, Beau, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.” He glanced around. “Where’s Hunter?”
“He’s taken Rastas to the skate park and he won’t be back until nine fifteen.”
His arms immediately tightened around her, crushing her to him, and he swooped on her mouth like she was vital oxygen required to fill his empty tank. He’d never kissed her quite like it—the rawness of need and the hardness of desperation mixed in with the gentleness of appreciation. It lit her up brighter than the fireworks they’d watched on the fourth of July.
Just as she was about to push him toward her bedroom, he lifted his head, picked her up and sat her on the counter. A shiver of anticipation shot through her.
His glorious brown eyes with their thick, dark lashes hooked onto hers. She’d expected them to be glazed with the same heady desire she knew fogged hers, but although she saw red-hot need, there was something else. Something serious.
Something akin to pain caught her under her ribs.
“Beau? We don’t have to do this if it feels wrong because of your mom . . .”
“Mom wants us . . . to be happy.” His big hands gently stroked her hair and he sucked in a breath. “Sh-Shannon. I . . . love . . . you. I need you.”
She swayed and he immediately steadied her. She’d been expecting sex on the counter, not a declaration of love. She had no experience with this. “You love me?”
His mouth kicked up in a lopsided smile. “Don’t sound . . . surprised. You’re amazing. I want us . . . to be . . . a family.”
A family? She couldn’t believe this was happening and her heart beat so fast it could have gone into competition with a hummingbird’s. “You, me and Hunter?”
“Yes.” His eyes sparkled. “Along with a couple of dogs . . . some horses and . . . a hell of a lot of cows.”
He loves me. He really loves me. She could hardly believe it. Beau McCade loved her. She wanted to squeal in delight, but instead, she wrapped her legs tightly around him and pulled him in close. Sliding her fingers through his hair, she brought his head down to her lips and kissed him deeply, using her tongue to claim him as hers.
Her everyday world receded and only Beau existed—his rock-hard ass against her calves, his solid chest against her aching breasts, his gentle hands on her back and his taste exploding through her, diving deep and driving her wild. He loved her. He was hers and she wanted him. Her hands fell to his belt, wanting to free him and feel him.
“Mom?”
Hunter’s horrified voice sent shock ricocheting through her, drenching her arousal like a blast of icy water. Her legs dropped away from Beau as her hands shoved him in the chest.
As he took steps backward, she slid off the counter, straightening her blouse and trying to find her voice. Hunter was staring at them both, his face filled with a myriad of emotions, but disgust and embarrassment outshone them all.
“Hi, honey,” she rasped out against a tight throat. “Beau was just leaving.” She tried to push him toward the door. “Aren’t you, Beau?”
All six feet of cowboy stayed firmly where he was, his expression sober and his eyes puzzled. “No.”
“Why were you kissing him?” Hunter asked, his voice rising accusingly with each word.
Panic filled her. This was why she’d never involved men in her life. “Like I said, I was just saying good-bye.”
“Sh-Shannon.”
She heard the critical tone in Beau’s voice but she didn’t care. Her son was looking at her as if she were slime, and she had to fix this. But dread bounced around her brain like a small rubber ball rebounding against a totally blank wall, and the only thing she could think of doing was to act as if nothing had happened. “You’re back from the skate park early. Did you forget something?”
An incredulous look crossed her son’s face.
Shit.
“Hunter,” Beau said softly. “It’s okay. I love . . . your mom. She loves me.”
The boy’s nostrils flared as he nailed her with a look of loathing. “Is that true?”
In all the months that he’d been miserable and sad, he’d never once looked at her like this. Desperation filled her. “Hunter, I can explain.”
Fury reddened his face. “Beau’s my friend. Mine. Not yours.” He threw the words at her and they hit, burning and sizzling like acid. “I hate you. I hate both of you.” He picked up the quivering puppy and, hugging her close, stormed down the
hall.
She rushed after him. “Hunter, wait. Please.”
“Go away.” He slammed the door in her face, the vibrations rattling the windows. The click of the lock echoed loud and defiant, shutting her out.
Noooo. This couldn’t be happening. Not when tonight had been so special. She raised her hand to knock on his door.
—
BEAU caught Shannon’s arm before her hand made contact with the wood, wanting to stall her so he could talk to her before she tried talking with Hunter. “No,” he said quietly, as he inclined his head back toward the kitchen.
She wheeled around to face him, her face pale but her eyes wild. “No?”
He put his fingers to his lips and gently propelled her along the hall to the living room, wanting to get her away from Hunter’s room so he could talk to her without the boy overhearing.
The moment they reached it she pulled out of his grasp.
“What do you mean no?” she said shrilly. “I have to fix this.”
“And we will,” he said as calmly as he could. “Just give . . . him a moment.” He wrapped his arms around her tense body, pulling her close, and smiled down at her. “Look at the . . . bright side. We’re lucky . . . he didn’t come home . . . five minutes later. That would have . . . been worse.”
“Worse?” Her usually warm eyes chilled to arctic blue and she threw off his hands. “This isn’t a joke, Beau. This is serious. It’s a perfect example of why I didn’t want him to know we were seeing each other.”
He’d never been happy about that decision, because secrets always caused problems. “He knows now.”
“Oh God, why did this have to happen? Why now?” She tugged frantically at her hair. “Tonight Hunter and I had the best night together we’ve had in over a year, and I’ve just gone and wrecked that new and fragile thing because I let you distract me.”
He reached for her, wanting to comfort her, but she ducked him. “He got a . . . surprise, Sh-Shannon. Give him time . . . to get used . . . to us—”
“No.” She shook her head. “You heard him. He hates us.” Her voice cracked. “He hates me.”
He remembered similar outbursts from Megan and Dillon when they were the same age as Hunter. “He doesn’t . . . hate you.”