by Nicole Helm
“Okay, so family love. It exists. It’s fostered. But this romantic bullshit?”
They were getting into some really weird territory, and she didn’t know how to get herself out of it. Maybe if she whipped off her shirt he’d be distracted enough to—
“I mean, how do you, of all people, manage to believe anything good comes from people? Surrounded by all the crap you grew up with. The guys we used to hang out with.”
“That’s assuming people in shitty situations don’t ever see anything good. With Rose and me, we still got to go to school regularly. Dad didn’t interfere with that. He still had his hope Mom would birth him a boy, or whatever fucked-up reason was the real reason, not just what he told us.”
“He said he beat you because he didn’t have a son?”
She didn’t want to get into this with him any more than she had wanted to get into the love stuff, and yet the words just piled up in her head, things she’d thought for years but had never been able to tell anyone, because no one wanted to hear it. Things she and Rose had whispered at night to each other, reassurances and hope. She’d had to keep those to herself for almost ten years.
“That was one of his explanations.”
“And you still believe that people aren’t just inherently evil? Some people?”
She must have been reading way too much into that question, because he couldn’t possibly think he was anything close to evil, no matter how many bad things he’d done as a teenager. “I saw there was kindness out in the world and some people who wouldn’t shit on you just because they could.”
He snorted. “Where’d you ever see a thing like that?”
“Don’t be stupid, Caleb.”
He stilled, and if she’d ever seen Caleb Shaw scared, it was in this moment. Why was he so afraid of his own goodness? He’d put food in her cubby in elementary school—why was he so afraid of what that proved about him?
“I’m…nothing I did was…” He scratched a hand through his shaggy hair, looking more like an uncomfortable kid in detention than a man receiving praise. She wasn’t very good at praise, but that was close, in her book.
“Let’s be careful how much goodness we attribute to me before we actually accomplish anything.”
She wasn’t going to trust him. That could only end badly for her, but damn he made it hard. Which meant she needed to focus. On Steph, not on Caleb Shaw.
“So, you think even though you refuse to take money for Shaw, you can get Mel to give you money for some mysterious other reason.”
“I’ll tell her I have a friend in trouble. Which is true.”
She wanted to laugh that he was considering her a friend, but somehow the laugh didn’t materialize. There was some weird lump in her throat. “And then what?”
He rubbed a palm over the scruff on his face, and she wished she could turn back time to the sex, because that had been comfortable, easy.
It didn’t make her chest feel full to bursting—or at least she was able to bury all that in heat and orgasm.
“Well, your family’s place isn’t all that far from Mel and Dan’s.”
“Where do they live?”
His laugh was a little bitter. “The old Paulle place.” At her shocked expression, he shrugged. “I know. Apparently Dan is the Paulles’ grandson.”
She tried to swallow that. His sister now lived where he’d almost killed a man. Small towns really knew how to fuck with you.
“Anyway, it’s… You’d have to hide in the truck bed with a camper shell on it, probably under some blankets. I could make an excuse to head out to Mel and Dan’s, drop you off when the coast is clear. I can talk with them while you get the lay of the land. We can go from there.”
“You’re not serious.”
“I know it isn’t ideal, but it’s all I got.”
Not ideal? She wouldn’t have to get there on foot. She had food in her belly and a place to stay. Compared to a few short hours ago, her life nearly resembled paradise.
Which scared the piss out of her. When things were going good, that’s usually when the rug got yanked out.
But, as long as it didn’t get yanked out before she got Steph out, then…she’d just suffer through.
“How soon can we manage it?”
“If not tomorrow, I’ll try for the next day.”
She nodded, trying to tamp down the excitement, the hope, all the things that would get her crushed. With Caleb sitting across from her and a nice warm meal between them, any tamping was going to be really hard won.
Chapter 14
There were a lot of things a couple could do without a condom. Even sneaking out of his grandfather’s bed at four in the morning, exhausted and a little sore from the shitty mattress, Caleb didn’t regret a one.
If he made it to town today, he would have to buy some condoms, if he could do so without raising any eyebrows. Could he make it to Bozeman and back and still accomplish everything he needed to?
He shook his head, tiptoeing out to the living room. He’d let the fire die to embers last night, but he worked to bring it back to life. Delia would wake to a warm cabin, hopefully make herself some breakfast, and once he got his chores finished, they could work on how to enact their plan.
He shoved his feet into his boots, grabbed his coat and pulled it on. He stopped for a moment, because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d set off for morning chores with something like happiness in his chest.
That seemed wrong. Apparently, all it took was sex to make him happy. But before he could work that out, Delia’s voice interrupted the silence of way-too-early morning.
“Need any help?”
He turned to the doorway of the bedroom. She was standing there in the flickering firelight in nothing but socks, one of the plaid blankets pulled around her. Her hair was a tangled mess, and there were faint dark smudges under her eyes from lack of sleep.
Still, something in his chest seemed to catch, a pause before his heart went back to beating normally. What was scary was it wasn’t the first time he’d felt that little hitch when looking at her, and that he’d only ever felt it looking at her. No matter what state she was in, looking at her did things to him, and the fact that she had that kind of power was downright terrifying.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Cat got your tongue?”
He cleared his throat, trying to focus on anything besides that little kernel of dread. “Tyler’s coming by some time this morning to go over paperwork. You better stay put.”
She nodded, and though he didn’t quite understand why she wanted to help, he didn’t want to refuse it. She deserved something. Something to put her effort into. Something to work toward that was…well, satisfying. Getting her sister out might be necessary, it might be all about love and hope and fairness, but it wasn’t like keeping a ranch going.
More important? Yes. But there was something to be said for getting your hands dirty, for taking your place in the cycle of the earth.
“Summer wants to start a garden.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Uh, cool, I guess?”
“Maybe you could help her. I don’t know if she was starting today, but you can ask once it’s a reasonable hour. If you go out the back of the cabin, follow the tree line east—it’ll take you to her little clearing. And it’d keep you out of sight. Tyler’s looking at the north pasture, so you’ll be hidden as long as you don’t come out the front.”
“Is that worth the risk?”
“Not a risk.” At least, not enough of one for him to take it back. Delia needed something more than just Steph’s escape. They all needed something more than just the dire tasks ahead of them. Even him.
He wasn’t sure it was fair Delia was part of his, but maybe he could be part of hers. For the time being. And after the time being?
Well, one step at a time. “I’ll be by ’r
ound dinnertime.”
“Going to force feed me again?”
He managed a grin. “Damn straight.”
She rolled her eyes, not moving from her spot in the bedroom doorway. She studied him with dark, insightful eyes until he had to turn away from that insight, still not comfortable with it. “Wait.”
He stopped with his hand on the knob and glanced at her over his shoulder. She was walking toward him. Then she bent over and retrieved his hat.
“You forgot your hat.” She finished crossing to him, and instead of handing it to him, she settled it onto his head. “Work hard, cowboy.”
He let his gaze purposefully drift to where she held the blanket around her, seeing if he couldn’t catch a glimpse of what was underneath.
“While I appreciate all you can do without one, I wouldn’t be opposed to you rustling up some condoms before you show up. In fact, I might put condoms above food in the ‘things I would like you to return with’ column.”
“I think your priorities might be skewed.”
“Well, if I’m ever able, I’ll bake you a cake, stand next to it naked, and see which one you prefer.”
He tugged at the little dip where she held the blanket edges together. “I’d say you’re forcing me to make an unnecessary choice. We can have sex and eat our cake too.”
She leaned into him, letting the blanket be tugged by his fingers enough so he could make out the tops of her breasts. She brushed her mouth across his jaw. “Such a shame you have work to do,” she said in a husky voice before pushing him away and retightening her grip on the blanket.
“You have no idea,” he said with a groan. He shook his head, trying to clear it from the fog of sex. Her. Sex. Her. “Cows wait for no man’s erection.”
She laughed, and he couldn’t resist lowering his mouth to hers again. Not when she smiled or laughed without an ounce of sarcasm or bitterness.
“Get some more sleep, and make sure to—”
“If you say ‘eat,’ I’m going to knock you out.”
“Stay warm,” he finished instead, tipping his hat at her. “I’ll be back.” He forced himself into the cold, black morning, toward his truck and away from warmth, light, and Delia’s laugh.
For as much as they’d discussed some hard things last night, most of the evening had been about sex—a distraction from all the hard in their lives. He had to leave that behind. Focus.
He had ranch work to do, he had a meeting with Tyler, and he had to somehow find an excuse to see Mel so Delia could get close to Steph, a thought which left him sick to his stomach.
But he had no other way. He drove across the land separating the cabin and the main house, trying to focus on the stuff that needed to be done, but somehow his mind just kept traveling back: sharing a bed, laughing as he left this morning.
He was about to drive past the main house to the barn just to cut off the time he’d lost this morning, but the lights were shining. Weird. Dad never got up and turned the lights on early anymore.
When he pulled up in front of the house, the door was open, and Dad was in his wheelchair, poised at the entrance.
Caleb hopped out of the truck, worry beating a quick and unnerving rhythm through his limbs. “Everything all right?” he called.
“You didn’t come home last night,” Dad rasped.
He almost felt a stab of guilt. He shouldn’t have left a man in a wheelchair alone, but when the man probably wouldn’t call him even if he did need help, it was hard not to let bitterness coat the guilt. “Didn’t know you paid attention.” He stared right back at Dad, an impasse he didn’t know what to do with. “You all right?”
“I am,” he returned and backed into the house, shutting the door with a firm slam. His inflection—as if Caleb was the one who wasn’t—stuck with him well into his chores, and it eradicated most of the good feeling he’d woken up with.
* * *
It was hard to stomach breakfast when she was stressed and worried about what she would do if Caleb actually managed to get her to Rogers land. But she forced a granola bar down and drank some of the terrible instant coffee, only because if Caleb kept getting all worked up about how skinny she was, she was going to cause him physical harm.
And she didn’t want to do that. Which was another problem. But, she was going to deal with her problems one step at a time. Steph first. Caleb second. Jail third.
She thunked her head against the counter. Caleb was going to lose his shit if he found out about her warrant. She really needed that not to happen, but she couldn’t let that need outweigh Steph’s.
Which meant she had to stop thinking, and since she couldn’t do anything regarding Steph until Caleb came back, that meant taking his suggestion to walk over and see if Summer was home and ready to talk gardens.
There was no way Caleb could know what that meant to her. The only pleasant memories she had of her mother were in the little garden Mom had kept behind the Rogerses’ home. It was one of the few things Delia had been good at in the homemaking department. While dusting, she always seemed to break something, and making a bed with tight enough corners to satisfy her father had always been impossible.
But gardening? She had a natural ability when it came to growing things, and it had felt like such a rebellion to grow something in the ugly darkness of her childhood.
She pulled on her coat and the stocking cap Caleb had not so surreptitiously left her, along with the cooler full of cheese sticks and yogurt cups. She’d never had any doubt that deep down he was a good man, but she’d never realized he was such an old lady.
And she never would have guessed there was something sweet about a man smothering her with care. Something…comforting. Of course, how could she realize it when no one had ever done it?
Irritated by herself, she pushed out the back door and walked into the woods. She kept her eye on the clearing that the Shaw buildings were situated around. They created a kind of semicircle of house, cabin, and barn, with only different swells of land obscuring views of each other.
So why was Summer secreted away in a little tree-lined section if she was his sister? Sister. Yeah, he hadn’t explained that one yet, had he? Something to bring up to deflect him when something he said hit too close to home.
When she reached Summer’s little clearing, she stood for a minute, drinking in the sight and the way the sunlight filtered over the caravan. It was like something out of a book. Pippi Longstocking on the Oregon Trail.
It made Delia smile, and the sunlight warmed her face. She could hear the sounds of snowmelt, the drip, the creak of the trees. A bird trilling somewhere. She breathed in deep, let it out, let it renew.
Hope was dangerous, but it was all she had.
Summer’s car was parked next to the caravan, so Delia walked over to the door. The little step stool that had been on the ground below it the last time Delia had been here was nowhere to be seen, so she knocked at about the middle of the door.
When Summer answered, she looked as she always did: a cloud of hippie fairy pastels and jewelry, and that bright, happy smile Delia wasn’t sure she’d ever quite learn to trust.
“Delia! Hi.”
“Hey, Summer. Uh, sorry to bother you. Caleb said you were…” Only when the words were halfway out of her mouth did she realize how stupid they sounded, and how it might look with regard to how Summer had left her and Caleb yesterday. But there was no way to go but forward. “…going to start a garden.”
Delia had never known anyone like Summer, whose already sunny expression brightened like she’d just offered her gold.
“You want to help?” Summer asked eagerly, handing Delia the detached steps.
“Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, don’t have much else going on.” At least at the moment. She placed the steps on the soggy ground, then climbed into Summer’s little den of the hippie bizarre.
�
�I bought seeds yesterday, and I got a book from the library about victory gardens, but I’ve never done anything like this.”
“It shocks the hell out of me you don’t know how to grow hemp and make it into clothes.”
Summer busied herself with a box of seeds and a thick how-to book. Some of the cheeriness in her expression dimmed. “Oh. No. Never had much by way of…getting dirty. That was not allowed,” she added, almost under her breath.
Which was so odd, Delia pressed when normally she never did so. “Why couldn’t you get dirty?”
She shrugged, pretending to flip through the seeds. “It’s not important, is it?”
This girl. “There’s a whole heck of a lot you keep hidden, isn’t there?”
Summer slanted her a look. “Right back at you.”
“Me? Open book.” Which she knew Summer would see for a lie, but if she affected ambivalence enough, maybe the girl would keep being cheerfully pleasant and never press.
“Right. That’s why you look so much like Rose,” she said far too casually. “And why when I played ‘Delia’s Gone’ the other night, she almost fired me.”
All the breath whooshed out of Delia. She didn’t even need to hear the song for the cold shiver of fear to work down her spine. “What?”
“That old Johnny Cash song?”
“Yeah, I’m…familiar.”
“So was Rose.”
They regarded each other, and then Summer smiled. “Tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
It was tempting, tempting enough that tears started to well in her eyes, but she blinked them away. “Nothing to tell.” She couldn’t tell Summer that Rose was her sister. She did not seem the kind of girl who could leave well enough alone and keep that secret. Especially if she was playing songs with her name in them around Rose—presumably on purpose. More, she really couldn’t tell Summer that Dad used to sing that song when she was in trouble. First time I shot her, I shot her in the side.
Suddenly the walls of the caravan seemed too close, and none of this seemed cheerful or friendly. It felt…ominous. “I have to go.”