by Nina Croft
She wrapped her arms around her knees. “My grandmother has been a widow for thirty years. In all that time, she’s never invited a single man for Sunday lunch. She’s pursuing you, Josh. You need to have an idea of whether or not you want to be caught.”
“You approve of her and me?”
“I don’t know yet. I don’t know you—you’re a hard man to get to know. And she’s my only family. But I want her to be happy. And as far as I can tell, you make her happy. That’s good enough for me right now.”
She twisted the ring on her finger. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Tanner, because that would ruin her mood, but she couldn’t resist one quick question. “Did you see Tanner this morning?” He nodded. “How did he look?”
“Like shit.”
She winced. “Oh.”
“Broken nose, black eye, looked like moving hurt. What happened? Did you beat him up?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Probably because he deserved it.”
She let out a short laugh at that. “You know him so well.”
“I know him well enough.”
She poured them both a coffee from the flask beside her and handed him one. “He told me you shared a cell.”
He took a gulp, then nearly choked on the hot liquid. “Yeah.”
“And that you probably saved his life.”
“Maybe.”
She studied him for a moment. “You don’t give a lot away, do you?”
“No.”
She smiled then. Maybe she did like him. “He got in a fight. With Sawyer Dean. He used to be a friend of Tanner’s.”
“I’ve seen him around.”
“Does he do it on purpose? Just to annoy people. Does he want them to think bad of him? Or does he just not care?”
“He cares.”
“So why…?” She heaved a sigh.
“Maybe you need to ask him why he was fighting with Sawyer.” He glanced at her as though he wanted to say more, but in the end, he remained silent.
“Perhaps I’ll do that.”
“Tell me about this thing.” He was clearly changing the subject, and she knew she wouldn’t get anything else out of him. “What are we waiting for?”
“Slack tide,” she said. “It’s a period of about thirty minutes between the tides. When there’s no current in the channel. It’s easier for the horses to swim then.”
“You don’t think it’s cruel? To round them up like this. Corral them.”
“Maybe a little. But you’ll see—they don’t seem stressed. The older horses have done it before. They probably reassure the younger ones. And it enables the herd to survive. If they didn’t reduce the numbers, they’d keep breeding until there were too many, and they’d starve to death. That’s probably more stressful. This might not be perfect, but it’s the better option. And it brings a lot of money into the town.” A movement across the water caught her eye. “Look,” she said. “They’re coming.”
Across the channel, she could see the first of the horses wading into the water, urged on by about twenty men and women on horseback. “There’s Mimi,” she said, waving a hand toward a rider on a colored pony on the far left of the herd.
“Hard to believe that woman is seventy.”
“I know. She’s amazing.”
Mimi was riding her horse into the water now, and then she was swimming alongside the herd.
They watched in silence as the horses swam. She searched the leaders, saw a small palomino head in the water.
“See that little one, just off center,” she said to Josh. “The first foal that comes onto land is named King or Queen Neptune and is given away in a raffle. I hope you’ve bought your ticket.”
“Yeah, because I always wanted a pony.”
The first horses were coming up onto the beach now, shaking and stamping. The little palomino was the first foal. She was a beauty, golden with a flaxen mane and tail. The cowboys kept them moving, herding them into a corral.
“They’ll rest them now for forty-five minutes or so. Then they drive them to the carnival grounds for the auction on Friday.”
Mimi rode up at that moment, and Emily uncurled her legs and jumped down from the bed of the truck. Josh climbed down beside her. Mimi halted the mare in front of them and dismounted. She was wet and smiling and looked happier than Emily could remember.
“Maybe next year you can ride as well,” she said to Josh.
He looked vaguely alarmed at that, and she grinned. Emily turned and rummaged in her bag, pulled out a sandwich, and handed it to Mimi. “Here. Eat.”
Mimi took it. “Have you two been getting to know each other?”
“We have. I’ve asked his intentions, and he’s pretty much told me to mind my own business.”
She grabbed an apple, took a bite, and then held out the rest to Mimi’s horse. “You want me to walk her and you and Josh can…talk.” Without waiting for an answer, she took the reins and led the horse away. When she glanced back over her shoulder, they were sitting on the truck, legs swinging like a couple of kids.
Her grandmother deserved to be happy. It was an unlikely relationship. But maybe no more unlikely than her and Tanner.
Was Josh right? Should she ask Tanner what the fight had been about? Maybe, but she would leave it a few days, because she was still mad at him, and underneath the mad she was upset. And scared. That she’d made a huge mistake. And he was going to break her heart and probably not even notice.
She knew he’d only agreed to the marriage because she was pregnant, and she’d asked, and it was supposed to help her keep her job.
But deep down, if she was honest, she wanted to marry Tanner. And she wanted him to want to marry her. For more than just the baby. She’d been living in a little fantasy land of her own devising, where Tanner realized he loved her and couldn’t live without her and…
She was an idiot.
He’d never love her. Tanner O’Connor didn’t do love.
And she was starting to realize that without love she couldn’t survive a marriage to him. The pain of living with him and knowing he didn’t love her would be unbearable.
And the way he was acting, it certainly wasn’t going to help her keep her job.
For the sake of her child, she couldn’t back out now. Her baby deserved a mom and dad, and she’d seen enough of Tanner with Keira to know that he would be a good father. With Keira, she was able to get a glimpse of the man he would have been without all the bad things in his life.
And she wished she could somehow magic those bad things away.
But she couldn’t, so she just had to find a way to distance herself. Move their relationship onto a more impersonal footing. Well, as impersonal as you could be with the man you were going to marry.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“And the winner of Queen Neptune is…Tanner O’Connor.”
The crowd greeted the announcement with a moment’s silence and then a round of applause.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” he muttered.
Beside him, Keira was wide-eyed. “You won, Uncle Tanner. You won my pony.”
She’d insisted he come today. Apparently, his name was on the tickets, and the rules said: if he wasn’t there he couldn’t win. He hadn’t been able to say no. He never could to Keira. He was probably going to be a crap dad. One of those who spoiled their kid rotten because he couldn’t say no. But he’d never for a moment thought he might win.
What the hell was he going to do with a fucking pony? He caught Reese’s gaze over Keira’s head. His brother wasn’t saying anything out loud, but his eyes held a faintly panicked expression that said as clear as anything—this is your mess, clean it up.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“Come up and claim your pony, Mr. O’Connor.”
Keira was positively bouncing now, looking at him pleadingly. God, he knew exactly what it felt like to want something so much. With that thought, he searched the crowd around the auct
ion ring and homed in on her immediately. Emily was standing beside her grandmother and Josh, and she was staring right back at him. Her expression was serious. She was avoiding him. She had been avoiding him since he’d fought Sawyer.
He held out his hand to Keira. “Come on, princess, let’s go claim your pony.”
A huge grin almost split her face. “Really?”
“Really.”
She took his hand, and he weaved his way through the crowd to where the auctioneer stood on a podium.
Keira had the tickets clutched in her free hand, and she held them out to the man while her eyes never strayed from the pony who was being restrained by a couple of helpers and looked totally wild. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t letting Keira anywhere near a wild pony until it had had some training. It was pretty, though, a sort of golden color with a silver mane and tail.
“You want to take your pony now, Mr. O’Connor?”
“Just give me a bit of time to sort something out,” he said.
“We’ll keep her in the pens for thirty-six hours.”
Keira tugged on his hand. “Can we take her home with us, Uncle Tanner?”
He glanced down at her and rubbed her head. “You planning on keeping her in your bedroom?”
She giggled. “She couldn’t climb the stairs.” She thought for a moment, a little frown forming between her eyes. “Could she live in the yard?”
“It’s not big enough, sweetheart.”
“Then where is she going to live?” He could hear the panic in her voice.
“Let’s go see if we can find somewhere.” He picked her up and carried her through the crowd to where Emily and Mimi stood. Waiting for him. Emily’s gaze lingered on his face. He had a great black eye, though it was turning yellow now.
Keira wriggled, and he put her down on the ground. “I’ve got a pony, Ms. Towson.”
“I saw. She’s a pretty one as well.”
“She’s the best pony in the whole world.”
“She’ll be a lot of work.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose… I know it’s an imposition, but…” He tugged at his hair. He was crap at asking people for anything. Emily stared back at him, one eyebrow raised. He turned to Mimi. He could do this. “Can we take the pony to your place until we sort something out?”
She smiled, her eyes crinkling. “Of course you can, Tanner. We have the trailer with us. Why don’t you and Emily take your new pony, and you can come back and collect my horses afterward.”
Was she matchmaking? Again. It warmed something inside him, that Mimi was on his side.
He looked at Emily but couldn’t read her expression. She was beautiful today, looking younger than usual in faded jeans and a pink T-shirt. He liked her casual. Hell, he liked her any way he could get her.
Finally, she nodded, and some of the tension left him. He’d been quite aware that she was pissed off at him. But how could he explain? However much he hated Sawyer—and strangely some of that hatred had dissipated since their fight—nothing could be gained from bringing the truth out now.
“Can I come?” Keira said.
He searched for a reason to leave her behind, because he craved some alone time with Emily. But he couldn’t come up with a reason.
“Why don’t you stay with me, and we’ll watch the rest of the ponies?” Mimi said. And in that moment, he loved her. “You can go see your pony when she’s settled in. She’s going to be frightened for a while. You have to take things slowly, but I’ll teach you if you want to learn.”
“Really? How to ride?”
“Of course. Though your pony won’t be ready to ride for a couple of years yet. She’s just a baby. But we’ll find something for you to learn on, so you’ll be ready.”
“Come on,” Emily said. “Let’s go get your pony.” She sounded amused.
“This is all your fault, you know. You sold me those goddamn tickets. You said there was almost zero chance I would win.”
“Keira’s happy.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
An hour later, he drove the truck through the gates of the ranch and pulled up outside the barn. They hadn’t talked much on the drive. But it had been a comfortable silence. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to break the fragile peace.
Emily jumped out and opened the double doors of the barn, and he drove the truck in. She waved her hand toward a stall, and he backed up so the ramp was directly in front of the stall door, then turned off the engine.
He climbed out and went around to the back, opened the ramp, and peered inside. The poor little thing was standing in the center of the trailer, trembling.
“Poor thing,” he murmured. “She’s lost everything she’s ever known.”
“They settle quickly,” Emily said, coming up beside him. “And really they couldn’t all stay on Assateague. The island couldn’t support a bigger herd. She’ll be fine. You want to get your pony out?”
Did he? She was small, only came up to his chest. He could do this. He strode up the ramp, and she backed away. Maybe he couldn’t do it after all. He stood for a minute. And she stepped forward. And he stepped back, forgot the ramp was there, tripped over, and fell backward. The filly gave a huge leap over him. He stared up at the roof of the barn.
Emily giggled. “Well, it got the job done.”
By the time he’d pushed himself up onto his elbows, his new pony was safe inside the stall with the door shut. He sat up, ran a hand through his hair, pulled out some straw.
“Come on, cowboy. On your feet.” Emily held a hand out to him, and he slid his palm into hers and got to his feet. She tried to pull free, and he held on to her.
Reaching up with her free hand, she ran a finger over his face. “I’m still angry with you,” she said.
“I know.”
“I don’t know why I expected anything different.” She touched a fingertip to his nose. “You broke it.”
Actually, Sawyer had broken it, but he thought it best not to bring that up.
“I’ll make it up to you.” Though he had no clue how. He couldn’t be the man she needed him to be. That wasn’t who he was. He could clean up as much as she liked, and it wouldn’t stop people looking down on him. But he wished it was different. That he could be someone she could be proud of. That their baby would be proud of him and not ashamed, as he’d been of his own father, however much he denied it.
And the truth was, he’d been deeply ashamed. And more than that—he’d been ashamed that he was ashamed. He’d liked to pretend that he didn’t give a shit what people thought. But it had been an act. An act that had become so ingrained that now he couldn’t tell the act from reality.
“Will you play for me?” she asked.
“What?”
“Will you play the piano for me?”
She gave his hand a tug and led him out of the barn, down the drive, and to the house. She upended a plant pot on the porch and picked up a key. “Everyone is at the auction,” she said as she let them into the house.
They had the place to themselves. There were a lot of things he would rather do than play the piano, but he followed her into the sitting room, with its grand piano in the corner.
He sat down on the stool and thought for a moment, chewed on his nails. “What would do you want me to play?”
She shrugged. “You choose.”
Then he started playing. Schubert. The music was lilting and soothing, and he lost himself for a little while as he always did. He wasn’t that good, he didn’t practice enough, but for once the music came out flawlessly. As the last notes died away, he turned on the bench to face her.
She blinked away the tears in her eyes. Aw, he hadn’t meant to make her cry.
She sniffed. “That was so beautiful.” She waved a hand at the piano. “Why can’t you let the rest of the world see this side of you?”
It was his turn to shrug. How could anyone from her background ever understand what it had been like for him and his brothers? What it had been
like for him to come home from prison? To know they all looked at him and wished he’d died instead of Dwain. That he could never measure up. And that if he showed any sign of weakness, they would tear him apart.
If he even tried to show that he wasn’t the piece of crap they all thought of him, he’d fail. And they’d see through him to the failure he was. To the scared little kid. To the shit-scared eighteen-year-old. One best friend dead. The other just gone.
He couldn’t say all that to her.
He didn’t want her thinking he was pathetic. Better she think him an asshole than he lower his guard and let her glimpse the real him. Because if he did that and she rejected him, then he knew he was finished.
So instead, he placed his hands on her hips and lowered his head so it rested on her stomach. They stayed like that for what seemed like an age. Finally, she lifted her hands and slid them into his hair, holding him tight against her.
She smelled of warm woman and a hint of flowers. He slid his hands under her T-shirt to touch her silky skin, then straightened and pulled the T-shirt over her head. Beneath it, she wore a pale pink lace bra. And he traced the edges, her skin so soft.
He was already hard—had been from the moment he touched her—and he wrapped his arms around her and picked her up, carried her the few steps to the big brocade sofa, and laid her gently down.
He knelt on the rug beside her and tugged off her boots, then her socks. His hand moved to her waist, and he flicked open the button on her jeans, slid down the zipper. She raised her hips so he could tug them down and off, tossing them on the floor behind him. Then he turned his attention back.
She was naked now except for her bra and panties, pink lace so he could see the soft blond curls beneath.
He traced a finger over her stomach, then rested his palm flat against the small bump—just starting to reveal that she carried his child—and a sense of tenderness filled him. He would try and show her with his touch everything that she meant to him. Even while part of him knew it could never be enough.
…
He was so beautiful, he made her heart ache. Maybe that was shallow, but she couldn’t help herself. The sight of him, kneeling beside her, nearly broke something inside her. She’d already been feeling moved from his music.