Rocky Mountain Devil

by Vivian Arend

  “No, I think you’re dating him, but he’s obviously just a temporary rebellion.”

  Something clattered to the floor. She glanced down, shocked to discover the stapler lying on its side, sprung open, on top of the snowflake that had fluttered to the ground earlier.

  Rebellion. Rafe was her rebellion? She could hardy wait to tell him.

  But in the meantime, she had to deal with Jeff. Politely.

  Notice I’m still trying the polite thing. Maybe you could suggest he do the same.

  “There is nothing temporary about my relationship with Rafe. He’s never told me we needed to stop seeing each other. He’s never left without a word for a month.”

  Maybe not as polite as she’d hoped. Oh well.

  Jeff stared at her, a frown creasing his forehead. “When are you going to forgive me for that? I’ve explained it was a misunderstanding.”

  “Misunderstanding or not, you called it off between us, left town, and when you returned, you got together with someone else who you thought would help your career. It wasn’t about caring for me, it wasn’t about doing what you were ‘called’ to do.”

  Maybe she’d feel pity for him if she weren’t so tangled up with other emotions.

  “I’ve confessed I was wrong. And I was even more clear about why things didn’t work out between me and Jessica.” He folded his arms, looking at her sternly. “You seem to think you’re the only one who’s suffered in this situation. There was a lot of emotional baggage that I’ve had to deal with—”

  She snorted.

  Nope. He lost her the instant he tried the sympathy route. She had zero for him.

  “I can see how that must have been so terrible to think you’d be part of a family who could help launch you to the top.” Huh. Laurel wondered if Jessica had called off the engagement.

  “This isn’t you,” Jeff said. “So bitter, and so cold. You need to forgive and forget, and move on.”

  No, she needed to keep control of her temper before she hit him with something blunt. “I’m not God. You can confess your sins to him, and I’m sure he’ll accept. But me? I’m not that awesome. I can forgive you, to a certain extent, but I can’t forget.

  “You choose not to forget.”

  “Damn tooting, I don’t,” she snapped.

  “So you’re going to ignore what’s best for you out of spite? That makes no sense, Laurel. Please don’t do that to yourself.”

  She wanted to laugh in his face. “And I suppose you think you’re what’s best for me?”

  “Yes,” he retorted. “And if you would stop being childish and start using your brain, you’d see that. Being unequally yoked with that redneck rancher is the last thing you need.”

  She went even colder inside.

  Jeff must’ve taken her silence as agreement, because he carried on. “You know, we had good times together. We’re compatible, and we share common passions and interests. We’ll make a great ministry team, and if none of that seems important right now, consider that your parents think we’re a good match.”

  “They like liver and onions too, but you don’t see me jumping up and down to join them when they order it.”

  He seemed shocked at her out-of-the-blue comment, but it was make a bad joke or scream at him for continuing to put her through this. She wanted it over. Needed him to get the hell out of her life.

  Jeff caught her fingers in his. “Your parents want you to be happy, and have a place where you can grow strong. A place for you to be protected from the storms of life, and I want so much to be on your side for all of that. For the good, and the bad, and—”

  Laurel backed up so quickly she nearly tripped over her own feet. “What do you know about being around to support people through the good times and the bad? I’ve seen no examples of you being supportive. In fact, what I saw was you focusing on your own needs to the exclusion of everybody else. Protective? More like tossing somebody into a storm and leaving them without a life preserver.”

  Damn. She’d said more than she wanted to, but he was such a self-centered bastard.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jeff insisted. “But I want to know. I want to be there for you.”

  She shook her head. “You had your chance. I’m not such a glutton for punishment that I want to ever risk trusting you again. Oh, and besides, I don’t need to. I have someone else in my life who has never let me down. I’m not about to throw away what I have with Rafe just because you’ve suddenly decide to develop a conscience.”

  “I didn’t suddenly—”

  “Jeff, stop.” Laurel was suddenly exhausted. “I don’t want to fight, and more talking isn’t going to change my mind. I forgive you, for everything you think you did, and all the things you don’t even know you did and I won’t tell you because it doesn’t make any difference now. The only thing that will make a difference is to move forward, and that means you need to move on without me.”

  He looked kind of stunned. Speechless, for once in his life.

  Thank you for small mercies, God.

  She dove back into it, praying he would get it this time. “I might see you because you work with my father, but if you have any feelings for me, stop going out of your way to put us into awkward situations. You will not arrange setups where we’ll be alone, and you will stop trying to run my life.”

  Jeff stared at her for a long time, his lips pressed together into a thin line.

  Then, hallelujah, he nodded briskly.

  Laurel grabbed her sweater from the nearby chair and left without looking back.

  She had grown strong. That was the point. Her world had turned dark and colourless for a while, but she’d survived and come out on the other side.

  This was the moment she wanted to be with Rafe and let him know everything. It was time for all her secrets to come out—because she’d said a mouthful to Jeff.

  Rafe had never let her down. She could trust him, and she needed to tell him that.

  Leaving the church and heading to the rental, she felt an amazing cloud of calm surround her, and for the first time in a long time she was sure she was doing the right thing.

  She felt…peace. And hope. And joy.

  Okay, it’s up to you to deal with Jeff from here on, because I’m done, she informed God.

  The lights were out at the rental, both Rafe’s and Jesse’s trucks missing from the yard. She was so full of plans she didn’t even care if Jesse knew she was sleeping over. It was past time pretending—as far as she was concerned, she and Rafe belonged together.

  She let herself in and made her way to his room to grab a shower. When he wasn’t home by the time she’d dried her hair, she borrowed one of his T-shirts and crawled into his bed with her book to wait.

  Gabe had given up, but Rafe insisted they could get the job done without having to call in any of the cousins.

  His brother shrugged. “Maybe, but not tonight. We’re done.”

  “It shouldn’t take that long,” Rafe insisted.

  “You want to be stubborn—fine, go ahead. I’m calling it a night and going home to my family.” Gabe pulled his winter gear back on for the trek to the house. “If you were smart, though, you’d go find Laurel and spend some time with her.”

  “In a bit,” Rafe said. “No use leaving when I’m so close to having it finished.”

  Only, fifteen minutes later he’d broken a sprocket, which in turn had made fixing the connection between the trailer and the truck impossible with the equipment he had on hand. He went looking through the older pieces of equipment in the yard, the icy cold of the February evening stealing into his entire system. No luck—nothing matched with what he needed.

  His hands were cold as ice, even through his gloves, and he wanted nothing more than to go home and fall exhausted into bed. Instead he dragged himself over to the main barn at the Angel homestead because now if he didn’t fix it, Gabe would get up in the morning to find a small job had become way bigger.

  The doo
r Rafe should have used to access the barn was covered past the doorknob with hard-packed snow. He cursed as he stomped around to the far side of the building through thigh-deep drifts, wondering what the hell his father was thinking to push the snow from the road up against the barn. Bloody fool.

  Only he’d been staying away from Ben, and if his father wanted to do stupid shit, so be it.

  Except when he finally got into the barn, he discovered the trailer he needed parts from was nowhere to be found.

  “Pain in the fucking ass,” Rafe muttered, hitting the light switch. Maybe if he searched hard enough there’d be—

  The lights stayed off.

  “What the hell?” He flipped the switches, as if that would help. Nope. Whatever weird shit his father was doing, it included shutting off the power to the place.

  Or at least to part of it. A small light shone in the distance, and Rafe made his way through the darkness, frustration rolling forward with him like a wave.

  He rounded the corner to discover his father glaring at a blank wall, his hands full of torn old rags, a single bare light bulb hanging on a long wire from the ceiling.

  Rafe was tired, and he was pissed, neither of which made for good decision-making. He stepped into his father’s line of vision and spoke sharply. “Are you trying to burn the place down?”

  Ben jumped back, his slack expression twisting into a frown. “I don’t need your lip.”

  “I didn’t come here to give you any. Just need to know where the spare trailer is.”

  “Hell if I know,” Ben snapped. “Go ask your brother. He’s the fucking king of the heap around here, not me.”

  Let it pass, he told himself before trying again. “Not one of the horse trailers, but the one for the flatbed.”

  “I told you I don’t bloody well know. Didn’t think you were stupid as well as a slacker.”

  Okay. That was a little harder to ignore, but Rafe tried. He walked past his father, snatched up a flashlight from the workbench and clicked it—

  Nothing. No batteries, or dead.

  He whirled on his father. “Is there anything you haven’t torn apart or broken on the entire ranch? I’d like to finish my fucking job tonight.”

  Ben snorted. “Right, as if you’re worried about getting things done. Ungrateful bastard.” He stuck a finger in Rafe’s face. “One of the stupidest things your brother has ever done is let you have a free ride.”

  For fuck’s sake. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Ben coughed for a moment, tapping his chest before turning a derisive look Rafe’s direction. “You don’t know what hard work is. Sure, you show up and do the chores, but you don’t have a lick of sense when it comes to making long-term decisions. That’s why you’re doing stupid things, like hanging out with Sitko’s daughter. Can’t you see the woman’s only using you to upset her family?”

  If that was the best insult the bastard could come up with—? Rafe wasn’t laughing, but it wasn’t enough to make him blow his top. “Whatever.”

  His father couldn’t leave it alone. If he had, Rafe might have walked away, but Ben kept talking, and his ranting got worse by the minute. “Damn stupid choice in women, both you and your brother. Pastor’s girl is using you like a patsy, and that other one with Gabe—thinks she can tell the men around her how to do their jobs? She can’t even fucking do her job as a woman.”

  Blood roared in Rafe’s ears. “Her job?”

  “Don’t know why we’re trying to save the ranch. Ain’t going to be any of our blood to pass the place on to, the way that woman can’t keep a child going—doubt if that one they got already is even theirs in the first place.”

  Rafe could not believe his ears. “Micah is Gabe and Allison’s son. What the hell are you smoking? Or are you fucking drunk to come up with this bullshit?”

  “Don’t you talk to me like that,” his dad roared, shaking a fist at him. “Wet behind the ears. You’re lazy, you’re rude, and you need to shape up, right now, because I don’t want it ever said that one of my sons—”

  Rafe broke. “I wish to hell I wasn’t your son.”

  Ben stuttered to a shocked silence.

  Fuck it all. Rafe’s temper flashed to white hot. The fuse had been lit, and there was no stopping this time. “I wish to hell you were even a fraction of the man that Pastor Dave is. I don’t know how Gabe ended up so damn perfect when you were constantly in his face telling him he wasn’t good enough.”

  He expected his father to interrupt at any moment, but the man just stared at him, face drawn with anger. Clutching the rags in his hands so tightly his knuckles had gone white.

  “It’s nothing you’ve done that’s turned this family around. Folks call this the Angel land. Well maybe there was some divine intervention going on that helped Gabe pull us out of the hell you had us headed toward.”

  Ben opened his mouth, but Rafe didn’t let him get a word in. He was on a roll, and everything he’d been holding back for the past days, and months—hell, for years—it spilled out of him.

  “And if Gabe’s an angel, I have no trouble with you judging me and calling me a devil, because I sure the hell ain’t wasting my breath praying for you. You can act holier than thou all you want, but it doesn’t change the truth. I know who’s responsible for saving our land, and that’s my brother. And Allison, and the rest of the family. It’s Mom, who’s put up with more heartache and bullshit than any woman ever should have to.”

  Rafe stepped closer and stared his father in the eye. “You don’t like how I’m doing things? I don’t give a damn. You’re not the one I’m trying to impress anymore. I gave that up when I was twelve years old, the first time you got so stinking drunk you threw your empty beer bottle my direction.”

  Ben’s lips were pressed together into a thin white line as his gaze flicked to the scar beside Rafe’s eye. The one he’d gotten from a flying shard of glass.

  The scar on his body was small—the hurt inside was far far greater.

  His volume faded. He wasn’t shouting anymore, but there was just as much intensity in the words. Just as much anger and frustration for all that Rafe spoke barely above a whisper now. “You’ve walked too close to the line, and you can’t ever come back. Not with me. Maybe Gabe and Allison are waiting for you to come to your senses and wake up to everything you’ve got right in your hand. Maybe Mom still prays for you, hoping you’ll go back to being the man she married. But I’m done. You’re not my father. As far as I’m concerned, you never were my father.” He took one last look into Ben’s ash-white face. “And you can go to hell.”

  Rafe stood there, expecting Ben to take a swing at him. He wasn’t sure if he’d fight back, or not. His mouth tasted vile, as if the words he’d spat out had somehow left a taint behind.

  Ben just stood there and stared, trembling. His mouth hung partially open, but nothing came out. No curses, no counter accusations.

  Rafe turned on his heel and stomped away, slamming the door behind him and heading to his truck. Even knowing Gabe would find the abandoned mess in the morning, there was no way Rafe was going back to his task, not tonight.

  His phone rang as he climbed behind the wheel—Laurel’s ringtone—and he swore. The rage burning in his veins left him hot and dirty inside, and the last thing he wanted to do at that moment was dump this crap on her. Seeing Laurel right now was out of the question.

  He ignored the message. He was in such a stinking foul mood, he didn’t even want to think about her—she was going to be so fucking disappointed in him when she heard he’d lost his shit.

  He didn’t want to think—period.

  So he wouldn’t. Rafe took the back roads into town and swung by the local off-sales to pick up a bottle of whiskey. Skipped going to his own place—he didn’t want to deal with Jesse tonight either. Just headed into the back hills to one of the small shelters dotting the land.

  Twenty-four hours—that’s all he was looking for. Time by himself to forget that his dad was a piece o
f shit, and while they deserved better, this was as good as it got.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A loud crash woke her, the bedroom door slamming into the wall. “Rafe, get up, man— What the fuck?”

  Laurel struggled upright on the bed, blinking hard as her heart pounded.

  “Jesus, what are you doing here?” Jesse demanded.

  “What—?” She looked around in shock, waking up enough to discover she was alone in the bed. “Where’s Rafe?”

  Jesse dragged a hand through his hair and cursed loudly, stomping back down the hall before rushing back. “Get dressed. All hell is about to break loose, and you probably want to go home before anyone finds you here.”

  “I’m not hiding my relationship with Rafe,” Laurel insisted, but she scrambled out of bed. “What’s wrong?”

  He stared down the hallway, pointedly looking away from her. “I’ll tell you in the living room.”

  Then he was gone, and she was struggling to get into her clothes. She seemed all thumbs, her clothes tangled in knots, and the entire time her mind raced, picturing terrible things.

  If something had happened to Rafe—

  Laurel shoved the thought away violently, jerking her jeans over her hips and doing them up as she glanced at the alarm clock beside the bed.

  No wonder she was groggy. It was only five forty-five in the morning.

  She pulled on her sweater as she rushed into the living room, desperate for answers. “Jesse, what’s going on? Is Rafe okay?”

  Jesse had calmed down, which was good because she was frantic enough for both of them. “He’s fine. I mean, I don’t know for sure because I thought he was here, and he’s not.”

  Her heart was pounding hard enough the blood rushing past her ears made it hard to hear. “Then what?”

  He shook his head. “Uncle Ben—he’s dead.”

  Laurel gripped the back of the couch as the room started spinning. “D-d-dead? But how?”

  And where was Rafe?

  Jesse guided her around the couch and made her sit. “I’m sorry for busting in on you like that, but I honestly thought I’d find Rafe. Aunt Dana went out this morning to start chores and found Ben. She called my mom, who called me because Rafe didn’t answer his phone.”