Outlaw Cowboy

by Nicole Helm

  She’d acted out because she’d wanted to. To feel free. To feel powerful. Caleb’s acting out was something she never quite understood, but she could see this was a part of it. No matter how good he tried to convince himself he was, he had some weird belief deep down he was bad. Broken.

  Why? Why would he think that? It was so obvious to her he was the little boy in the birthday card—good and sweet and ready to help. Maybe he had a bit of a temper, but, jeez, who didn’t?

  She replaced the lid and put everything back the way it was. In the end, she grabbed a pair of sweatpants and pulled them up to her waist, clutching the extra fabric at her hip. She’d go get her clothes, some breakfast, and then…

  Maybe there were some chores she could do—hidden in case Tyler stopped by. Maybe she could at least offer enough in the way of help he wouldn’t totally hate her when he found out about the warrant.

  Sure. Like you could ever make yourself that useful.

  She thought about the box. About the man struggling to do the right thing. For her. Maybe…maybe she could convince him of all he’d done for her before she had to disappear or the police came knocking. That would be her parting gift, the belief that the box was all true. Then and now. She could convince him of that, right?

  Well, it was a goal anyway.

  Feeling only moderately awkward at walking around a house that wasn’t hers, Delia padded downstairs, found the laundry room, and quickly closed the door. She rummaged around in the dryer for her clothes and changed into them.

  Clean clothes. Dear Lord, it was almost as good as an orgasm. Almost. She moved into the kitchen, pausing only for a moment when she saw Mr. Shaw situated in front of the refrigerator. She kind of forgot he was always around.

  Yeah, that was weird, but the best way to deal with weird was to pretend things weren’t. Since he was at the fridge, she went right for the cabinets, hoping to find a glass for water.

  Mr. Shaw’s gaze was unnerving, but she pretended she didn’t notice or didn’t care. She found a glass, filled it with tap water, and took a drink. When she turned back around, Mr. Shaw was staring at her.

  So she stared right back. What the hell else was there to do?

  “What do you think of my boy?” he asked, his voice gruff and demanding.

  Delia considered the question delivered with a hard-edged stare. Hmm. She could go for a lie or a flippant remark, but if she had to keep hiding the warrant thing, maybe she could be honest in the rest. To everyone. Maybe she could live life like she’d always wanted to—like herself, not trying to pretend to be anything, not trying to save her sisters. Just Delia Rogers.

  Wanted. On drug charges.

  She shook away that thought and focused on the man in front of her. She could see Caleb in him and it made her heart hurt, because she hoped he wouldn’t end up like this. Miserable and silent and…whatever was wrong with him. It wasn’t his legs. It was something in his heart. “Well, I’m beginning to think your boy is the best man I’ve ever known.”

  He didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. His eyes may have squinted a fraction, but that was it.

  So she couldn’t stop herself from adding something snippy. “Don’t have any idea where he got it from.”

  The hard edge disappeared, and Caleb’s father smiled. Ruefully, yes, but it was a smile. It was screwy, but any time she gave him a hard time, he seemed to open up. “Maybe I was good once.”

  Delia raised an eyebrow. “Then I’d try to be good again.”

  He cracked out a laugh at that.

  A strange noise caught Delia’s attention and she turned to see Summer standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the mudroom.

  Delia smiled. “Hey. How’re the seeds?”

  Summer didn’t answer, she merely stared at Mr. Shaw, who avoided the stare for a few seconds before turning his wheelchair and wheeling away.

  Summer blinked rapidly, then gave Delia an unreadable look before turning around.

  “Summer?”

  But the girl didn’t stop. She kept going, followed by a loud slam of the back door.

  Well, hell.

  Chapter 19

  Caleb found himself whistling as he walked back toward the main house. Then he stopped in his tracks. Why was he whistling? He never whistled. Could this be something akin to happiness?

  A truly terrifying thought.

  Before he could be completely shaken by it, footsteps thundered ahead of him. He looked up to see Summer running across the yard.

  “Hey, Sum—” He stopped abruptly when he saw the way tears were streaming down her cheeks. “What hap—”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.” She brushed at her face, as if that made it look like she wasn’t crying. As if the wobbly smile she flashed could hide anything—even if she did it on the run.

  Inwardly, he groaned. He’d grown up with none of this. Mel had been a rock. Women had flirted at him, not burst into tears. Now he was surrounded by emotional messes. Couldn’t they break down around someone more capable of dealing with this?

  The whole thing was probably karma, but he didn’t have to like it. Unfortunately, he felt slightly responsible for Summer, so he turned and followed. “Summer.”

  “Go away, please,” her usually cheery voice squeaked.

  “You have to tell me what happened. You can keep walking, and keep begging me off, but we both know you’d hound me if our situations were reversed.”

  She stopped abruptly. “I do not hound,” she said with an injured sniff.

  “Right. Cajole work for you?”

  She turned to face him, cocking her head. “Are you…teasing me?” she asked incredulously, her face a blotchy, teary mess.

  “Um.” So apparently that was the wrong tactic?

  But then she took two big steps toward him and threw her arms around him, crying all over again.

  What. The. Hell.

  Awkwardly, Caleb rested one hand on her shoulder and patted her back with the other.

  She sobbed a few times before taking some purposeful sounding breaths in and out. When she pulled away, she straightened her shoulders, using the collar of her shirt to mop up her face.

  “What happened?”

  She shook her head. “It really wasn’t anything. I got upset about something silly.” She frowned a little, looking off into the distant mountains. “I don’t get why he can…”

  There was only one he in the house she’d just run from, and anger shot through him immediately. “What’d he do?” Caleb demanded. He had mixed feelings about why Dad had left them in the dark about Summer’s existence, mixed feelings about everything to do with Mom leaving, but he’d never understand how his father could treat his own daughter the way he’d treated Summer since she’d appeared and he’d admitted she was his.

  “No, he didn’t do anything. I guess that’s the thing. He was…” She blew out a breath. “He was sitting there chatting with Delia, smiling, like… I don’t know why he won’t even try with me. I like Delia, I do, but she’s not…his.”

  “He’s fucked, Summer.”

  She blinked. “I…know.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. He’s…we’re not a family of men very good at looking their mistakes in the eye and dealing with them. I know that isn’t fair to you, but it also isn’t you.”

  “But why is it her?”

  “I…don’t know, Summer. I wish I could—”

  She shook her head, waving him off. “It’s okay. It is. I just needed to get that out. Cleanse. I’ve been bottling up too much.” She took a deep breath in, moving her hands in some weird circle motion. “I should do my yoga.”

  “Right. Sure. You do that.”

  “You know, yoga or meditation would really help you, Caleb. I have a book—”

  “Gotta go. See you later.” He started walking toward the house, b
ecause any time Summer tried to “heal” him with her books and her mindfulness, he had the unrelenting urge to run screaming in the opposite direction.

  As he reached the yard of the house, Delia was standing in the doorway. She looked fresh and beautiful and…worried.

  “Is she okay?” she asked as he approached.

  Something about her concern made his chest ache in a weird way. He didn’t feel bad or guilty he hadn’t solved Summer’s problems, and he didn’t feel like he needed to protect Summer from Delia’s concern. It felt like he could confide in Delia, and it wouldn’t totally blow up in his face.

  He was apparently losing his mind. “Yeah, she’ll be all right.”

  “What was she upset about?”

  “Dad stuff.” He wasn’t going explain this to Delia. That was up to Summer. This had nothing to do with him. Uh huh. Sure. No Dad stuff of your own. “Why don’t you head on out, maybe take her mind off of it with the garden thing you guys are planning?”

  Delia didn’t move out of the doorway. “What Dad stuff?”

  Caleb shrugged. It didn’t seem right to be talking about Summer’s issues behind her back. That was his story and he was sticking to it. He wasn’t at all scared that he wanted to share his worries. “Just stuff.”

  “You can’t send me into the sobbing girl’s den and not tell me what I’m up against.”

  Caleb blew out a breath. Women. Seriously. Why was he surrounded by them all of a sudden? “She doesn’t know why he won’t talk to her,” he conceded.

  “He won’t talk to her? At all?”

  Once he let a little thing loose, it all came pouring out. “No. Not since she showed up. She tries to put on a brave face, but we both know the girl has a heart the size of Montana and it hurts that he won’t budge. So.”

  “She saw me talking to him.”

  He shrugged again, not knowing what else to do. Because now Delia looked upset, and he really didn’t want to do this again. “You have to understand, she sees him smiling at you, and she wonders what the hell is wrong with her that he can’t do the same with his own flesh and blood.” Right, that would make Delia less upset.

  Delia’s eyebrows drew together, studying him more carefully than he particularly liked. “She…feels that way.”

  “Yeah, who else?”

  Her look went pointed.

  “I’m not the one who ran away crying, Delia.” Not once. Not ever. That wasn’t him. He needed to get the hell away from people and their emotions. He pushed past her into the house, but she followed.

  “No, but you sure weren’t nice to me when it was you who walked in on us.”

  “What do you want me to say?” He’d say anything to make this stupid subject drop.

  “I don’t know.” Gingerly, she reached out and rested a hand on his arm. “Maybe just admit that it hurts.”

  He jerked his arm away, surprised at how easily her pointing it out made it so. It broke down all the little lines he’d drawn to keep the hurt at bay. But she said it, and it hurt, and he didn’t particularly enjoy being at the mercy of that. “Fine. It fucking hurts. Happy?”

  “Caleb…”

  “I’m going to go talk to him. Go be useful, huh?”

  He saw the flash of hurt on her face but ignored it. Better she understand real quick that if he was hurting, he damn well flung it around whether he wanted to or not. He stomped through the kitchen to Dad’s normal day-spot in the living room. Dad was settling himself in front of the TV, and Caleb wanted…

  He wanted to get a rise out of this stupid man doing this stupid thing, hurting everyone simply because he didn’t know how to deal. Caleb didn’t want to be this in a few years. Suddenly, so suddenly he didn’t know where it came from or how to fight it away, he wanted more.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded of his father.

  Dad grunted, gesturing at the TV.

  “I don’t mean in general. I mean to the women who are your children. I mean what are you doing with all of us and all of Shaw and with your fucking pathetic life.”

  Dad didn’t move, didn’t turn, didn’t do anything but shrug.

  Caleb grabbed the first breakable thing he could find, and before he’d fully understood the implications, he hurled the plate leftover from yesterday’s dinner at the wall.

  It splintered, crashed, and he wished he had a thousand more. God, it was something in the face of all Dad’s nothing.

  “Go work.”

  “Work? You mean, barely survive? You mean bleed for a few cows I’ll probably lose because we sank everything into you and you can’t even be grateful?”

  Dad clicked on the TV, and Caleb knew he should walk away and take his anger out on something else, but he couldn’t get a handle on it. It’s in you. Everything had happened because of him, and he was trying to put something to rights for Summer.

  Dad had made mistakes from the beginning, and the man couldn’t even try or pretend like he cared. Caleb stalked across the room and tore the remote out of Dad’s hand and hurled it against the wall too, where it broke apart and clattered.

  He looked at his father, who didn’t even flinch. His eyes were on the TV. There was enough sanity left in Caleb that he didn’t kick over the TV, but he wanted to.

  Instead he stood between his father and the screen, forcing himself to be the focal point. Forcing the issue. Why were they tiptoeing around every damn thing? For the sake of what?

  Dad had been paralyzed over five years now. He’d had his time to come to grips with it, and if that was callous, well then Caleb was callous.

  “Why are you doing this to us?” he demanded, curling his hands around the armrest of his father’s wheelchair, leaning in close. “I know what you think of me. I’ve always known what you think of me, but how can you think they deserve it?”

  Dad’s face remained impassively blank. Not a flicker of emotion, not a gentling of the stern line of his mouth. But his words were surprisingly gentle. “None of you deserve it, Son.”

  “Not good enough,” Caleb replied, feeling as close to tears as he’d been since that damn moment in the hospital, when he was so sure his father was about to die and it would somehow be his fault.

  “I don’t know what else to be.” Dad was still and blank, but there was gravel in his voice. “You lose your heart, your soul, your daughter, your legs. It’s too hard to be something.”

  “You are something. You’re a burden and a misery.” Caleb pushed away from the chair. There. He’d said it. Mel would probably hate him for saying it, and Summer wouldn’t be far behind, but it needed to be said.

  So he’d be the one to stand up and do it, because he wouldn’t be like this man, afraid to do the hard yards. Not anymore.

  He stalked away from the godforsaken room where his mother and father had given him nothing. “And you’re right—we don’t deserve it,” he added for good measure.

  Because fuck if he didn’t deserve something at this point.

  * * *

  Delia stood in the archway between the hall and the living room, heart in her throat. She’d been about to go find Summer and work on some distracting techniques when she’d heard the crash.

  This was not her place or her business, but watching Caleb confront his father had frozen her completely. There had been a well of pain she’d not even begun to imagine. She knew there were things Caleb kept below the surface, but this had been…

  She couldn’t leave him alone for the aftermath, even if she didn’t understand everything they’d said. She had been some kind of catalyst for this and…

  “What are you doing?” Caleb demanded, his voice rough, everything about him vibrating with fury and hurt.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but what could she say? What was she doing here? She didn’t know. All she knew was she wanted to hug him.

  Since she couldn�
��t think of anything else to do, that’s what she did. Stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. She was certain he’d pull away, but instead his arms came around her in return. His whole body was shaking.

  “I want to get out of here,” he said in a voice she’d never heard from him. There was a note of vulnerability in admitting that, and he never let those vulnerabilities show except in anger.

  But this wasn’t anger. It was pain.

  “Come on.” She took his hand, sparing a look back into the room at Mr. Shaw, but all she could see was the back of his head.

  Her family might be a nightmare, but Caleb’s was certainly its own kind of mess, and she felt sorry for all of them. Her own family didn’t need her, so maybe she could do something for the Shaws. At least for one of them.

  The Shaw house was too dark. Even not understanding half of what was going on inside of it, she could feel the ghosts of pain that swirled around all its inhabitants.

  So they stepped outside, and not quite sure where to lead him, she started walking toward the barn. She glanced at the road that led up to Shaw, hoping no unsuspecting visitors would ruin this moment for either of them.

  Tell him.

  What? Right now when he’d just had such a terrible moment with his dad, after comforting a crying Summer, only the day after comforting her when she’d been in tears? She couldn’t possibly tell him now.

  They walked through the barn, but Delia didn’t know where to lead him. Not when she had to be careful about being seen. On the other side of the barn was one of the pastures the cattle were currently settled into. A lot of the snow had melted, so it was mostly a muddy mess.

  Caleb went right up to the fence and leaned his forearms against it. She followed, mirroring his position.

  He didn’t say anything, just looked ahead at the mountains or at the sky—she wasn’t sure which. He didn’t look at her and he didn’t speak.

  So she looked at the mountains too, where snow peak met a vibrant blue sky. The sun was warm, even though the air was still cold. Spring. This was spring, and the fresh air was ten times better than the air in the Shaw house.