Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set

by Janice Kay Johnson

  After a quick look around to make sure no one else was about, Ian scrolled down and looked at his son. The boy grinning out from under a birthday crown over a cake with six candles arranged around a superhero logo was unmistakably a Tall Chief. Ian was willing to bet that, if he compared the photos of Eliot to his own photos from that age, they’d be almost identical. His own little Mini-Me.

  The next picture was of Eliot, a huge grin on his face, holding up the football Ian had ordered online and had shipped direct with the message “From your buddy, Ian,” because he really didn’t know how Eliot’s parents were dealing with the adoption issue.

  Lacy’s parents had never told her the truth, but Eliot’s adoption had been semiopen. That meant that every Christmas and birthday, Ian sent presents and in return got a short update from Rayanne with pictures. But it also meant that he didn’t get anything else. He was not a part of their lives.

  He scrolled to a shot of Eliot and his dad, Chris, in a big yard. Chris and Eliot had big smiles as they tossed the football around. Ian didn’t know what Rayanne looked like—it was always Chris in the picture. He looked like a nice guy—white, middle-aged, balding but still in good shape. Chris had a big smile and was often holding or playing with Eliot in the pictures. He was the kind of guy you’d want your kid around, Ian figured. Stable, loving, happy.

  Still, the photos of Chris and Eliot together hurt Ian in ways he was never ready for. Chris was playing football with Eliot—not Ian. If things had been different, it would have been Ian with Eliot, throwing the football around—not in a backyard in suburban Las Vegas but in the wide-open grasslands of the ranch. And all those other photos that Ian had saved in a secret file? It would have been Ian with Eliot on his lap, reading him stories. It would have been Ian holding Eliot by the hands as Eliot took his first steps.

  But it wasn’t Ian. And it never would be.

  It was better this way. It always had been. He’d signed away his parental rights because he would have been a lousy father. He’d wanted something better for his son. And by the looks of it, Chris was it.

  That rationale didn’t prepare him for the last picture of Eliot holding up a drawing of what was probably supposed to be Eliot and the football on a field. In awkward black crayon lettering over a bright blue sky, it read, “Thanks Ian Your Buddy Eliot.”

  Ian clutched at his chest as if someone had shot him, his eyes filling with tears. Buddies. This was the first time Eliot had ever said anything to Ian directly—even if it was a drawing. He had a powerful urge to ask Rayanne to send him the drawing or save it for him or something. If he had a fridge, he’d put it up on there. Maybe even frame it.

  His boy—his son—knew who he was. They were buddies. That was as good a place to start as any.

  Ian sat there, staring at the photos and rubbing the adoption triad tattoo over his heart. He wanted so much—and he had the right to ask for none of it. He wanted Eliot to know what it meant to be Lakota, to know his people and their ways. He wanted his boy to have his spirit journey and to feel the presence of the ancestors in a sweat lodge. He wanted his son to be proud he was a Tall Chief, from a long line of Tall Chief men who worked hard and played hard.

  That was what Ian had given up when he’d signed those papers so that Chris and Rayanne could take Eliot home and be a happy family. And that was what Ian could never change.

  His boy was six. He was happy and well. Ian thought of him all the time.

  How was he going to tell Lacy about Eliot? He’d hoped that getting more clues to her past would make it easier to talk about this, but he wasn’t stupid. Even though they’d gone through the box and looked at all the papers, the box had gone right back where he’d found it on the desk. He hadn’t missed the way she tensed up every time she walked past the office door, or the way she’d ask him to go in there and look for something instead of doing it herself.

  And if he hadn’t picked up on those clues that the existence of the adoption papers still bothered her, there was no missing the way she sometimes woke up gasping for air or how she’d pull him into her and make ferocious love to him, as if the physical act could erase everything else.

  She could tell him she was fine with being adopted, with discovering she was part Puerto Rican, with her birth mother giving her up because it was for the best. But Ian knew she was struggling and he had not forgotten that burst of anger, when she’d wondered how anyone could give away their child as if they were nothing.

  Just as he had.

  His heart in his throat, he scanned the arena grounds again before he hit Reply.

  Hi, Rayanne. Thanks so much for these. Eliot’s getting so big! Listen, there’s a chance I might be in Vegas this fall with the rodeo. You and Chris can discuss it, but I’d like to meet Eliot, show him what I do. If you think that’d be okay for Eliot. I don’t want to confuse him. Thanks again for the pictures. Give Eliot my best from his buddy. Ian

  Then he put his phone away and thought as he stared at the empty lot.

  He had a job to do. He had to get to Vegas.

  He had to tell Lacy.

  And somehow, he had to make sure she didn’t hate him for what he’d done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LACY SLID INTO the booth at the Cheyenne Denny’s. She used to eat here with her dad all the time. Cheyenne was only an hour from home and the town’s rodeo was famous. Some of that familiar sadness tugged at her. She missed her father so much.

  Mitch slid into the other side of the booth and turned his full attention on her. “So tell me about you and Ian.”

  Hand to God, he sounded almost like a gossipy old church lady. “Not much to tell. He’s helping me out.”

  After a second’s pause, Mitch nodded slowly as if he were trying to drag more information out of her. “And...”

  She managed a bored look. “And that’s it. How about you? How’d you meet him?”

  Mitch exhaled heavily and picked up his phone. “I was dating June but we broke up so she could be with Travis, and Ian had to threaten to rearrange my face. We’ve been friends ever since.” He held his phone out.

  Lacy found herself looking at Mitch and Ian and Paulo all standing together. Mitch and Ian were wearing similar black jackets and bolo ties set with a turquoise center. “That’s us at June and Travis’s wedding. Paulo didn’t stand up, in case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t really.” She studied the photo. She’d seen Ian in his bullfighter outfit and she’d seen him as a working cowboy. She’d even seen him in his college T-shirts knocking around the house, and of course she’d seen him in nothing at all. But she’d never seen him cleaned up. He was even more handsome than she remembered. And it’d only been a couple of hours since she’d seen him last.

  Mitch leaned over and swiped the screen. The next shot was Mitch and Ian and two people who could only be June Spotted Elk and Travis Younkin.

  She angled the phone to better see the resemblance between June and Ian.

  “The wedding was huge,” Mitch said, seemingly content to talk about this rather than keep pressing her for details on her love life. “Half the Lakota nation must have been there. Totally amazing, really. Very different than what I was expecting. I’m an only child raised by a single mother. So to walk into a ceremony where hundreds of relatives were there to celebrate with them was—well,” he said, actually looking sheepish, “it was overwhelming. And that was before we got to all the Lakota traditions—you have to see the cakes!”

  Lacy tried to pay attention as Mitch swiped past the medicine man who’d blessed the ceremony and shots of other riders she knew—the Preacher and Garth and Randy—and what looked like thirty sheet cakes in all kinds of wild patterns.

  There was a shot of Mitch holding up a small quilt, a puzzled smile on his face. “Get this—you know how normally people give the bride and groom pres
ents? Well, in their culture, it goes the other way! Everyone got presents to take home, and I don’t mean party favors. Blankets and quilts and towels—it was crazy!”

  But Lacy wasn’t really looking at the quilts and Mitch—she was looking at all the other faces. The brown faces of Ian’s family—his tribe. What would it be like to have a family like that? So large that you had to have important ceremonies like weddings inside a school gym?

  Lacy remembered one of Ian’s stories about June, how she’d crash with Ian for days on end. What would it be like to have family like that, a big family you could count on when everything else went to hell?

  Did Lacy have a Puerto Rican family like that somewhere out there? Would they know her? Recognize her? Did she look like her birth mother? Or would even asking that question lead to more heartbreak than she was capable of handling?

  “You’re awful quiet over there,” Mitch observed as their food was delivered.

  “Sorry.” She handed back his phone and stared at her fried chicken. She had zero appetite. “I’m an only child, too.” Possibly. At the very least, she’d been raised that way. She forced herself to pick up her fork but she couldn’t bring herself to start eating.

  Mitch was silent, which was unusual enough that Lacy looked up. He was giving her a long look. She didn’t like it, not one bit. So she changed the subject. “You think they’ll catch anyone tonight?”

  Mitch shrugged. “If it’s a stock contractor, something might happen tonight. But if it’s another rider, most of them won’t get into town until tomorrow.”

  “What are we supposed to do in the meantime? You’re not going to babysit me the whole time, are you?”

  “Of course not.” The look on his face, however, said something else. “Tell me about your bulls. Is it true that Ian wrestled one to the ground?”

  Now, almost six weeks after that heart-stopping moment, she could smile about it. “Yeah. I about killed him for it, too. I need that bull—Rattler. He gets a few more points, he could get called up to the Challenger circuit. It’s something my dad and I were working toward for a long time.”

  Mitch whistled. “Some of those bulls in the Total Championship Bulls Challenger rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  “I know.” Money she could use. She needed to pay off bills and to hire a few more hands and make sure the hay barns were full up before another winter hit. If she didn’t have that kind of money coming in...

  Lacy was operating on exactly no cushion right now. It was so tempting to focus on Ian instead, on dating her first boyfriend—on him helping her out at home. But it didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t expect him to just work for her for nothing, even if they were sleeping together.

  Mitch opened his mouth but his phone chimed. Seconds later, hers did, too.

  She had a washed-out photo of two men next to a fence paneling. Seconds later, Ian sent the text, Got them. Get here.

  “We need to go,” she and Mitch said at the same time. Mitch dug out two twenties and left them on the table. They didn’t bother waiting for the change or for to-go boxes.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, they pulled into the arena grounds. Mitch killed the lights as he eased up to the corrals, then they both got out and ran the rest of the way. Well, Lacy ran. Mitch followed behind as best he could.

  Please let everything be okay, she prayed. Up ahead, she heard the sounds of a scuffle, then, “Hey—hey!”

  Lacy ran harder. She rounded the side of her trailer and saw Ian and another cowboy grappling with two men underneath one of the streetlights that dotted the arena’s grounds. Her bulls were both still up in the corral—thank God—but the fight was agitating them. Chicken was trotting around and bellowing while Rattler was starting to buck his hind legs. If they both got going, the corral wouldn’t be able to hold them.

  The smaller man broke off from the fight and started to run away. “Get him!” Ian shouted as he hauled the other cowboy up. The guy Lacy hoped was Paulo took off after the runner, while Ian and his combatant spun in the light to reveal...

  “Jerome? Jerome Salzberg?”

  At the sound of his name, Jerome lashed out, catching Ian on the side of the face. Lacy screamed as Ian staggered back a step but he didn’t go down. “That’s the best you got?” Ian snarled, ducking out of the way of a second punch before driving an uppercut into Jerome’s midsection.

  With an audible groan, Jerome doubled over in pain and then fell to his knees. Lacy ran up. “What’s going on?”

  “Bitch,” Jerome spat out. He swung a leg up as if he was going to stand.

  “Stay down,” Ian growled, planting a foot on Jerome’s back and shoving. Jerome sprawled on the dirt. It wasn’t an out-and-out kick, but the threat was implicit. “Or you’re going to have a hell of a lot more trouble getting back up.”

  “Are these bolt cutters?” Mitch called out behind them.

  “We got a couple pictures of them in action,” Ian said, sounding surprisingly calm. “Wait—Paulo?”

  “Here,” came a thickly accented voice from several feet away.

  “Get your hands off me,” a high, thin voice snarled.

  A chill went down Lacy’s back. She knew that voice—she’d know it anywhere. Seconds later, Slim Smalls himself was shoved into the circle of light with a tall, dark cowboy behind him.

  “The police are on their way,” Ian said more to Slim than to Lacy. “We got pictures of you and your boy here cutting the chains.”

  “You can’t prove a thing, Geronimo.”

  If Slim thought this would get a rise out of Ian, he was sorely mistaken. Ian rolled his eyes. “We catch you in the act and you think you can insult your way out of this?”

  In the distance, sirens wailed. Chicken and Rattler shifted nervously.

  “You don’t have enough to convict us,” Slim said again.

  Lacy looked around. Mitch was still standing over the bolt cutters and the cut chain, his cast arm at an awkward angle. Jerome was facedown in the dirt and Slim looked like a cornered rat.

  “I don’t know about that,” she said. “But how much you want to bet the head office isn’t going to look favorably upon one of its stock contractors sabotaging bulls?” She looked down at Jerome. “Or one of its riders.”

  “He told me to,” Jerome sputtered.

  “Shut up, boy!”

  “I’m not taking the fall for you, Uncle Slim.”

  Ian’s eyes met Lacy’s. Had she heard right—Slim had family? She didn’t have a family but a snake like Slim had nephews willing to break the law for him?

  Salt in the wound, that’s what it was.

  Slim shot her a look of pure hatred as Jerome said, “His idea. He asked me to do him a favor.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Dude,” Ian said decisively, “I don’t give a rat’s ass who started it. I don’t even care why. You’re gonna pay for the bull that had to be put down, though.”

  “You can’t have the Straight Arrow,” Lacy told him as uniformed officers—wearing cowboy hats, of course—rushed up to the scene. “You’ll never get it.”

  Slim didn’t reply. He clammed up and refused to speak to the policemen, except to say, “I want to call my lawyer.”

  It took the better part of the night to call the promoter and file their statements with the police and turn over the photos and leave messages at the head office. It was closing in on one by the time Mitch and Paulo drove off together, leaving Ian and Lacy alone, again, in the arena in the dark.

  “How’s your face?” she asked, touching the slight bruise that was forming along his jaw.

  “Barely a scratch,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “He didn’t pack much of a punch. You?”

  “I...” She shook her head, trying to get her thoughts to fall into some sort o
f order. “I didn’t realize Slim had a family. That Jerome was his nephew. But that still doesn’t explain why.”

  “Sometimes there’s no good why.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Ian grinned at her, as if he’d expected her to say that. “He wanted the ranch. People do dumb things for land.” He snorted. “I’m Lakota. Trust me on that one.” When she laughed, he added, “I don’t know about you, but I’m beat. You want to get a room?”

  Lacy looked back to where Rattler and Chicken were finally sleeping in their corral. They’d rechained the panels. In theory, the bad guys had been caught, justice would prevail and she didn’t have to sleep in a truck anymore. Plus, if she were in a room with Ian, then they could wake up tomorrow morning together before he drove on to Lincoln.

  All of those were totally rational things that any sane person would agree to.

  “Yeah,” Ian said. “That’s what I thought. I call shotgun.”

  She smiled up at him, a weird mix of emotions she couldn’t put into words. “I’ve never had someone I could depend on—outside of my parents, I mean.”

  He leaned down and touched his forehead to hers in a gesture that felt almost reverential. “You’ve got me now.”

  Lacy had never been in love before. Her crushes were usually quick and relatively painless—and completely unrequited. So she didn’t know if this was love or not. But these feelings she had for Ian were something new and powerful, something that excited her and scared her a little.

  This wasn’t what the old Lacy would do, this thing with Ian. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She was something new—something powerful. And she wanted to be with him for however long it lasted. The rest of the season or...

  Well. No use getting ahead of herself. First things first. “Truck. Sleep.”

  Ian snorted as he pulled her toward the truck cab. “Who said anything about sleep?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “HEY,” JACK SAID, his tone urgent as he came hurrying back to where he and Ian were set up. They had an hour before the Saturday night goes and Ian was trying real hard not to check his phone for texts from Lacy every three seconds. “Mark Soleus is here. Look alive.”