by Alison Kent
“Do what you gotta do,” he said, and she finally glanced over to see his eyes dark, his expression harsh and feral. “But I’ll take care of looking around.”
Now he was making her curious. What didn’t he want her to see? “It’s too much for one person, Casper.”
He met her gaze, his finally softening as if he’d pushed aside the worst of what he’d been thinking. “You’re going to be asking me about everything anyway, so I might as well do it myself.”
“Sounds like you don’t want me here,” she said, tugging on protective gloves and turning to tackle the chore.
“No, I’m just a realist.”
Standing with a foot in each side of the dual kitchen sink, she huffed and puffed as she scrubbed at the window above it, soapy water from her sponge dripping down her arms. “I don’t want to be accused of not holding up my fifty percent of the workload.”
“Jesus, Faith. The fifty-fifty deal does not include you cleaning what got left here when Suzanne lit the hell outta town.”
“Funny you should mention your mother,” she said, a bump overhead bringing a frown and an upward glance.
When she looked back, Casper was staring. “Nothing about my mother is funny.”
From the little bit Faith knew about Suzanne Jayne, she’d have to agree. “How long ago did she leave Crow Hill?”
“Why don’t you find that out when you call?” he asked, his brow rising with the question.
He didn’t need to know that she’d already left two messages since he’d brought the paperwork with his mother’s phone number by the bank a week ago. “I’m asking you.”
He sighed and gave up. “Why do you want to know?”
Better. “Being in here has me thinking about you living here with her.”
“And you wonder why I don’t want you in here,” he muttered after biting off a string of bad words.
But Faith pressed on. “I’ve also been thinking about you hanging out at the ranch with Dax and Boone.”
He pulled a big plastic trashcan closer to where she stood, opened a cabinet door to the left of the sink. “We didn’t exactly hang out. Dave would’ve strung us up by our bootheels if he’d caught us doing anything but working our asses off.”
“Did you have chores around here?”
“Did I ever spend time here, you mean?”
Hmm. “I remember riding with Boone to drop you off sometimes.”
“Was that you?” he asked, chuckling. “That little girl giving me the puppy-dog eyes.”
“I did not give you puppy-dog eyes,” she said, glaring at him as she looked down.
His mouth was crooked, a half-grin making it so. “You did. And I was pretty sure you were looking to give me a whole lot more.”
“I was not,” she said as more banging drew her gaze upward. “And what the hell is going on upstairs? You’ve got a bad tree limb or rats or something.”
“Pretty sure I’ve got both.”
“Well, as soon as I’m done here I’m going to go see what it is,” she said, rinsing her sponge in the bucket and ringing it out.
Beside her, Casper shook his head, then reached to grab the sponge from her hands. “No, you’re going to go home and enjoy what’s left of the weekend. I’ll deal with—”
And then a teenage boy stepped from the service staircase into the kitchen.
Well, that explained the tree limb and rats. But it didn’t explain why Casper was muttering under his breath. She waited for him to finish, then asked, “Who’s that?”
Casper turned. “Oh, hey. Clay, this is Faith. Faith, Clay. He’s been helping me out around here.”
Clay raised a hand, a shank of blond hair falling into his face. He shook it back, all cool and full of himself. “Hey. Sorry. Kevin needed to go out.”
“Kevin?” Good lord. “There are more than one of you?”
“Kevin’s my dog,” the boy said as the shaggy white beast lumbered by and out the back door he nudged open with his nose.
Blinking away her confusion, she looked from the door back to the boy, then to Casper, then to the boy again. “He knows his way around.”
“He’s pretty smart. Anyway, nice to meet you.” Another raised hand. “I’ll go keep an eye on him.”
She waited until the screen door had banged closed, then took back the sponge and asked, “What was that?”
Casper shrugged. “Clay taking Kevin out for a piss.”
“Let’s try this again. Who’s Clay and why didn’t I know about him?”
“Because I forgot to tell you?”
“Casper—”
“Fine.” He breathed in, scrubbed both hands down his face. “I took him on before you and I made our arrangement.”
Took him on? “Ah, I thought maybe you’d forgotten about that. That we have one. And that every part of this renovation is included.”
“You’re really taking this fifty-fifty thing too far.”
“If I recall correctly, it was your idea.” One she’d jumped to accept for some ridiculous reason. “And now I’m wondering what else you’ve forgotten to tell me.”
All Casper did was shake his head. “Clay’s not part of the deal.”
“Casper—”
“He’s just a boy who needed a way to earn some money, okay,” he said, tossing mug after tumbler after highball glass into the trashcan to break.
“My money?” she asked, hearing a witch in her voice.
Casper heard it, too, and frowned. “No. I’m using the money Royce Summerlin’s paying me.”
“Wait a minute.” Obviously she needed to stop and eat the lunch she’d skipped because every word out of his mouth had her dizzy and reeling. “You’re working for Royce Summerlin?”
“Now that I know I told you about.”
She remembered that morning in the bank…“You didn’t tell me you’d gone ahead with it.”
“I thought our arrangement only covered the house.” He shoveled a stack of plates on top of the rest of the broken glass. “Not what I do for money in my spare time.”
She stood, went back to scrubbing at her frustrations and the glass. “Must be nice, having spare time. I know Boone wishes he did.”
“Boone could give up sleep the same way I’m doing.”
“He’ll have to if you break your neck and he has to take on your share of the work at the ranch.”
“I’m not going to break my neck. Two-thousand-pound bulls, remember? My neck’s still in one piece.”
“Ribs, then. Your arms. A leg.”
“Faith, I’ll be fine.”
She reminded herself he was a grown man, which didn’t help because grown men should know better. And grown men shouldn’t be so good at changing the subject. “That doesn’t answer my question about Clay.”
He dragged the trashcan to the back door. “I don’t want to talk about Clay.”
“Is he from Crow Hill? What’s his last name?”
“Whitman.”
Huh. “I don’t know anyone named Whitman.”
“Do you know everyone in Crow Hill?” he asked after he’d maneuvered the full can onto the porch and returned with another that was empty.
“Believe it or not, yes. Or if I don’t know them, I’ve heard of them. I grew up here. I work at the only bank. My parents are both employed by the school district. It’s hard not to be familiar with most everyone around.”
“He’s not from here.”
“From where then?”
“I met him in Albuquerque. I knew his mother.”
She slowed her scrubbing, the bubbles of soap bursting, the light from outside trying so hard to get in. “You slept with his mother, you mean.” When he didn’t deny her charge, she found the courage to ask the obvious. “Is he yours?”
“Mine? Hell, no. He’s too old to be mine.”
“That’s bullshit.” Scrubbing again. Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. “You could totally have a kid his age.”
“Okay. But he’s not mine. I was
in Albuquerque six years ago. And he’s fourteen.”
“So what’s he doing here now?”
“Helping me out with the house.”
“What about his parents?”
It took him too long to answer, and then he only came back with a question. “What about them?”
“Good lord.” And then it hit her. “Is he a runaway?”
He stood at the back door, hands on his hips, staring out, she assumed, at the boy and his dog. “Just drop it, okay? I’m handling it.”
He was harboring a runaway and called that handling? Was he out of his mind? “Do you know how much trouble you could be in? How much trouble he could be in?”
“I’m handling it, so butt out.”
“We’re business partners. I can’t butt out of what involves me.”
“This does not involve you,” he yelled before holding up a hand and reversing the step he’d taken toward her. “I’m sorry. Let me do that again. This,” he said, his voice level and calm, “does not involve you.”
“Casper—”
He was nearly on top of her when he hissed out, “His mother’s dead. Dead, okay? He came here because he doesn’t have anyone else.”
She swallowed, dropped her gaze from his to the bucket of black water. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Since when does life make sense?”
“What about foster care?”
He huffed. “Yeah, that always turns out well.”
“I’m not that naive. I know it doesn’t. But it’s how the system’s set up.”
“The system could use some improving.”
“Agreed, but it doesn’t fall on you to do that.”
“I’m not trying to improve it. I’m trying to give Clay a chance.”
“To do what?” she asked, finally looking up. “Learn there aren’t consequences? That he can cut and run and not have to answer for it? Is he staying at the ranch?”
“Most of the time, yeah,” he admitted.
Crap. “Don’t tell me Boone’s okay with this.”
“Boone knows what’s up. Dax, too. And I’m going to talk to a lawyer. Get things sorted out legally.”
She supposed that should make her feel better, but she wasn’t there yet. She peeled off her gloves, rubbed at her forehead. “I cannot believe this. Every time I think I have a handle on you, you pull another rabbit out of your hat and I realize I don’t know you at all.”
“Are you trying to know me?” he asked, coming closer, his eyes dark again, his expression feral. “Do you want to know me? You need to really be sure, because I can tell you some stories—”
The screen door opening cut him off and surely saved her. She looked past Casper as Kevin and Clay came back in. He gave her another iffy wave on his way to the staircase. “Clay,” she called out before thinking about what she was doing, just knowing she had to step in.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Are you working on something upstairs, or does Casper have you up there hiding from me?”
The flush on his face was the only answer she needed. She looked over at the man responsible for the gray hair she’d found this morning. “We could use another pair of hands in here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” was all he said.
SEVENTEEN
THE HELLCAT SALOON was dark and cold, and just what the doctor ordered. Since the trip from the bank didn’t give her car’s a/c enough time to cool the interior, Faith had made the drive over with her windows down. If she was going to breathe in hot air, it might as well be fresh.
She really should do something about a new car. And one day, she really should go ahead and think about buying a house. Or building a house. She’d lived in the same apartment since returning to Crow Hill after graduating from UT. She’d been driving her car just as long.
It was stupid to have so much money and do absolutely nothing with it. But spending it meant explaining it and admitting to having it and that led back to the reasons why. She didn’t ever want to talk about the why. She tried not to even think about the why.
Her family knew, and had kept the secret for her sake, but also because of what her actions had cost them. The gossip. The legal kerfuffle. Thankfully, not their jobs. And now she was having to hide it from Casper when he might actually be the one person sympathetic to the crap she’d gotten herself into. He was the one who kept telling her she was too tight.
Well, look what happened when she let down her guard. Was it any wonder? And now this thing with Clay. What in the world had Casper been thinking, hiding the boy now for over two weeks? God, her life. Every day seemed to come loaded lately with one more goddamn thing.
“Quite a stir being caused over on Mulberry Street,” Arwen said as Faith climbed onto a stool at the bar.
Still caught up in her musings, she frowned and asked, “What’s that?”
“Mulberry Street. Seems to be all anyone is talking about.” Arwen swiped a towel across the bar top, picked up a stray stir stick and peanut shell. “I’ll bet Casper hates the attention with the fire of a thousand Texas suns.”
“Can I get a frozen margarita?” Faith wasn’t taking the bait. She’d promised Casper she wouldn’t blab any more than she already had.
“Sure, sweetie.” Arwen disappeared beneath the bar and came up dusting her hands. “Strawberry? Pineapple?”
“Mango would be great, if it’s still on the menu.”
“Yep. I’ll have Adelita mix one up,” the other woman said, waiting another beat before adding, “just as soon as you tell me about everything going on at the house.”
Faith sighed. She supposed discussing the renovations in general terms wouldn’t count as blabbing, unless she revealed things only someone close to the project would have knowledge of. “How about I tell you what little I know as soon as I’ve got a margarita in front of me? Large, please.”
“And a plate of nachos. I’m not letting you drive home on nothing but one of Adelita’s large drinks.”
“Fine,” Faith said, knowing the bartender’s generous hand with tequila and that Arwen was right. She also knew nachos would accompany her liquid dinner a lot better than fries.
“Good girl.” Arwen slapped the bar top, then walked away to place the order.
While waiting, Faith leaned her elbows on the bar and massaged her temples, trying not to think about anything. Not work or Casper. Not the house or Casper. Not her money or Casper. Not how sore her inner thighs were or Casper.
But the applied pressure didn’t help because it made her remember his hands and his fingers and the way he used his thumbs, the circles he rubbed at the base of her skull, on the soles of her feet and her shoulders, how he did the same between her legs with the head of his cock, spreading her moisture, teasing her clit—
“Here ya go.”
Faith reached for the glass with both hands and swallowed a quarter of the contents, stopping only to avoid the pain of an oncoming brain freeze.
Arwen moved the glass, slid the plate of nachos in front of her. “Did you come here just to drink?”
“No. I had a reason. Give me a minute and I’ll find it.”
“You do look exhausted.”
“I’m not sure exhausted covers how tired I am. I’ve got to get more sleep.”
“Going to bed alone’s the best cure for that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I plan these all night things,” she blabbed, reaching for a tortilla chip loaded with refried beans, pico de gallo, chile con queso, and thick jalapeño slices.
“I think that’s a Dalton Gang thing. Going all night.” Arwen twisted her hair against the back of her head and secured it with a pencil. “Dax was the same way. I’d wake up to find him inside me and that was it.”
Good lord. “As happy as I am for you? There really is a thing as too much sharing.”
Arwen laughed. “Sorry. Just figured we could bond over the whole gang member old lady thing.”
At that, Faith nearly choked. Then she finally relaxe
d and laughed. “Is that what we are? Old ladies of gang members?”
“Or something. Though I’m still waiting for my official grim reaper riding gear.”
“I’m not sure they make that stuff for horses.”
“Thank God, though my ass would look great in chaps. Now tell me about the house.”
“Sure,” she said, trying to decide how much an old lady of a gang member, as opposed to a fifty-fifty partner, would know. “It’s coming together. Diego Cruz, he works part time at the ranch?” she asked, just to be sure Arwen knew. “His parents own a janitorial service, so Casper cut a deal with them to do the major clean-up inside, getting rid of what furniture’s still there, window coverings, all the crap in the yard, things like that.”
“Is there a lot?”
“Some. None of it worth anything, he says. I know Casper junked a ton of small stuff. Broken dishes. An old toaster oven. What used to be a TV cabinet. Suzanne’s things.”
“You were there?”
“For some of it. On the weekend.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean, hmm?”
“Nothing. Go on,” she said, filching one of Faith’s nachos.
“John Massey was good friends with Dave Dalton, so Massey Construction worked out a payment plan Casper could live with. They’ll be starting the construction next Monday.” Meaning Faith had one more weekend to spend making sure the inside of the house was cleared. “And, yes, I contributed my financial skills to the project to make sure no one was getting screwed.”
“Good to have friends in high places.”
“You know Crow Hill as well as I do. You can connect everyone in town through six degrees of separation, if not less.”
“Still. I’m surprised he’s moving forward so quickly. I thought he’d need more time to get the cash together.”
“He’s working part time for Royce Summerlin,” Faith said, reaching for her drink and downing another quarter.
“That’s right. Dax mentioned he was breaking horses for extra income, but I didn’t put two and two together. Guess I thought the money would be going into the ranch.” Arwen replaced Faith’s damp napkin before she returned the glass to the bar. “Royce must pay a lot better wages than I do.”