For the Love of an Outlaw

by T. S. Joyce

  Her cheeks heated like fire with embarrassment. She didn’t do this. She didn’t go out of her way for men. They rarely deserved the effort, and look what Trigger had done—proved her right once again. She wanted to hide under a rock.

  “Fuck!” Trigger said so loud it echoed through the mountains.

  Trigger appeared in front of her horse so fast she jumped. Queenie didn’t, though. The old horse just came to a halt as Trigger yanked the reins out of Ava’s hands. He offered her a gloved hand and glared up at her.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m offering an apology,” he said low.

  Not hearing any “I’m sorry,” she crossed her arms over her thin black jacket and waited.

  “Are you on your period?” he asked in a gravelly voice.

  “What?” she yelled. Three cows right near them jumped and bolted away.

  “You smell like blood, and plus you aren’t normally this emotional. You look like you’re about to cry, so…is it that time of your month? Your lady time? I can go to the store…” He cleared his throat and lifted his voice as he rolled his eyes heavenward. “I can go to the store and get you girl products and chocolate and ice cream and gossip magazines if you want.”

  Her lips made an embarrassing little popping sound as her mouth plopped open. “I cut my hand opening the fence to the barn this morning, and I didn’t have a Band-Aid,” she explained, pulling off her glove to show him the gash. It had made the palm of her mitten a darker pink. I’m not on my period. You just hurt my feelings. Apparently, I get more emotional around you, and I kind of hate it.”

  Trigger took off his hat and slid it back over his forehead in an agitated gesture. “Woman, you don’t need to feel anything for me. It’s a bad idea.”

  “Okay. Noted. I won’t talk to you anymore. Can I have the reins back now?”

  He bit his bottom lip and studied her for a few seconds too long to be polite. “No. You can eat breakfast with me.”

  “Oh, can I?” she said sarcastically. “How magnanimous of you. Polite decline.”

  “Get off the horse, Ava. That’s as nice as I’m going to ask you.”

  “No.”

  His gold eyes narrowed to angry little slits. “Get. Down.”

  “Fuck. You.”

  With a terrifying sound in his throat, Trigger wrapped his arm around her waist and slid her off the saddle and onto the ground so fast her stomach dipped like she was on a roller coaster. She yelped as she landed with her sneakers deep in the snow.

  Colton laughed from where he was now breaking up the ice for the cattle to drink. “She’s gonna kill you in your sleep, man,” he called unhelpfully. She was tempted about now.

  Trigger was all worked up, his shoulders moving with his frozen breath, and his blazing eyes drifting from her eyes to her lips and back again. “I like you feisty,” he growled.

  She’d been ready to burn him with a retort, but that surprised her and drew her up short. “W-what?”

  He leaned into her, mere inches from her ear as he gripped her waist. “It’s so fucking hot that you fight everything. Makes me want to piss you off just to see your cheeks go red and your eyes go angry. You purse your lips when you’re about to spew something poisonous at me, but it doesn’t make me want to leave you alone, Ava. It makes me want to kiss you angry, just to see if I can get you to quit fighting.”

  “You’re a monster,” she whispered.

  “You have no idea.”

  When he released her suddenly, she stumbled back a step. Her heart hammered against her ribcage as he straightened to his full height and looked down at her. “Ava Dorset, will you do me the honor of eating breakfast with me? First time I ever asked a girl nicely, so don’t make me wait too long on an answer.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest again and looked from the black horse, who was still dragging the tree stump, to the bull that was inching closer to Trigger and rolling his angry eyes, to Colton, who was leaning on the ax and frowning at the back of Trigger’s head, to the trio of pooping cows right near them, to Queenie, who was sleeping with one back hoof propped up, soft snores sounding from her, then finally back to Trigger. This was not the breakfast date she would’ve ever envisioned in a million years. But then again, sometimes “different” wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  “I could eat,” she admitted.

  Trigger nodded once and then turned and made his way toward the black horse, who promptly stopped dragging the log and bit at Trigger when he got close enough. The horse was as rude as his rider. Trigger didn’t even seem to mind. In fact, he murmured something low and smiled as he pushed the horses head away, barely avoiding his teeth. Trigger pulled a thermos and a leather pouch from the saddle bags and then jerked his head toward a small grove of trees. She followed close behind, jogging to keep up with his long strides, until they reached a snow-covered bench that overlooked the creek in the shade of a towering pine.

  As Trigger scooped snow off the bench seat, he told her something that shocked her to her bones. “Me and my dad built this when I was fifteen.”

  She studied the old cedar bench. Some of the boards had been replaced, and down one of the thick legs was what looked like splintered claw marks, like the ones on Colton’s face.

  “Don’t worry, it’s sturdy,” he said, watching her face. There was still a layer of ice on the seat, but he removed his jacket and set it down, then gestured for her to take that spot.

  “Won’t you be cold?” she asked.

  “Nah, I don’t get cold easy, and besides, I’ve been working on busting up that ice for a while. I’m good. Go on.”

  “Okay,” she said, shocked. Ava sat gingerly on the warm jacket and then wrapped it around her legs for good measure. Maybe he didn’t get cold easy, but she sure did.

  He handed her a couple of biscuits and then poured steaming coffee from the thermos into the lid before handing it to her. She didn’t normally drink her coffee black, but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth either, so she murmured her thanks and took a sip. Not bad. He’d added vanilla to it, and it warmed her from the inside out.

  After a few minutes of silent eating, Trigger draped his arm across the back of the bench and said, “You had questions.”

  “Oh,” she said, feeling nervous. “Right. There is a big expense that I don’t understand. You pay it out every month through your bank into an account that only shows up on this one payment on the fifteenth. Like clockwork for five years.”

  Trigger chewed a bite slowly and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Colton, who was tying Queenie to a shrub on the edge of the drinking herd of cattle.

  “Five years ago, something awful happened.”

  “What?”

  “Your brother got hurt. Bad hurt.”

  “The bear attack?”

  Trigger dipped his chin to his chest once. “Right around that time, the neighboring ranch got hit by a bear, too. He slaughtered the entire herd and killed their livelihood. It’s an older couple that runs that land, barely making it. The husband, Mr. Marks, he went after that bear, guns blazing, roughriding a horse he shouldn’t have been on in the middle of the night. He fell and hurt his back. He had a family to feed, and I watched for a few months as his woman struggled to pull them up. And there came a time when I was watching Colton heal, watching what the bear had done to that family, and I had to help. Just…had to.”

  “Why you?”

  “Why not me?”

  “Do they know you’re the one dropping money in their account?”

  “No. That was the deal. They don’t ask questions, and I keep them afloat.”

  “At the cost of your own ranch, Trigger. You understand that, right? You’re losing this place. It’s bad. It’s really bad. You are in way over your head. Totally upside down on the mortgage, you owe everyone in town, and you aren’t bringing in enough income to cover that family, much less yourself.”

  “I don’t have a choice, Ava. I have to fi
gure out a way to dig out.”

  “I crunched the numbers. This place is good. Good land, good access to the main road and to town. Someone could turn this into a tourist ranch, a dude ranch, or maybe someplace to do ATV excursions, something. Hell, the hunting around here is top-tier. Someone could come in and set up an outfitter. Get this place going again if they have the capital up front.”

  “Nah. I’m not selling. The bank would have to pry this place from my cold, dead hands.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was my dad’s legacy.” He looked over at her, and for the first time since she’d known Trigger Massey, there was pain in his eyes. “I let him down in life, Ava. Can’t do that in death. Can’t roll him over in his grave. He deserves better.”

  “He’s dead, Trigger. You shouldn’t let ghosts dictate your life.”

  “You did.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Isn’t that what chased you away from here? Ain’t that why you ran? Your dad left. He ghosted on you, and you stayed as long as the state made you be in Colton’s care, but the first chance you got, you bolted. I think sometimes our ghosts define us. Mine sure as hell does. I want to be half the man my dad was. Half the man, and I could die happy. If I let this place fold, or sell out, I have no shot at half-the-man in this lifetime.”

  Wow. Ava took another bite of a now-cold biscuit to stall her reaction. She’d never been sentimental about anything. Not anything materialistic and not places. She could pack up and move anywhere because a girl like her didn’t get attached to anything. It had always been way out of reach. Her heart was cold and stubborn and didn’t attach to warm things. Home was warmth. Trigger wasn’t like what she’d thought. He wasn’t cold. He attached just fine. His dead eyes when they were kids had been a mask. Trigger Massey was much deeper than she’d ever realized.

  Now, she wanted to know everything about him. She wanted to figure him out. Wanted to unravel his many mysteries. “How did you let your dad down in life?”

  “When you left, you missed a lot. Colton went wild. I went wild. The town was wild. Darby, and Charlos Heights, and Connor got overrun by MCs.”

  “MCs?”

  “Motorcycle clubs. But not your normal ones. These settled in the small towns here because the law left them alone for the most part.”

  “Okay. And you joined one?”

  “I ran one.”

  Ava choked on her biscuit and rushed to slurp down the remainder of her coffee. “You ran one,” she repeated dumbly, trying to imagine him riding around on a motorcycle and doing…what exactly? “What do MCs do?”

  “Illegal shit. I was president of Two Claws, and I was trying to keep the club’s business legit, but the other clubs weren’t doing the same and we caught flack for that. Devil Cats and Red Dead Mayhem fought for us to join each of their black-market stuff, and I tried to keep us neutral. But then they warred, and eventually I had to pick a side for us. It got people hurt. Got two of my guys killed.” He grimaced like those words had tasted like poison.

  “Was Colton in your MC?”

  “He was my vice president.”

  “Oh, my God, how did I not know any of this?”

  “Because you didn’t answer his calls or come home, woman. Colton wasn’t ever gonna email you this stuff.”

  “When did you two quit?”

  Trigger huffed a humorless laugh. “You don’t quit an MC, Ava. I tried. We got hit, and when two of my guys didn’t make it, I dissolved the MC right after the funerals. Just…fucking demolished the entire club. Burned it to the ground, and then me and Colton bowed out and left no good leadership to help them rebuild. I couldn’t stomach my club being pulled between the Devil Cats and Red Dead Mayhem anymore, so I killed the club.”

  “What happened to your members?”

  “Some were okay with quitting after those funerals. Most joined the other two clubs. My dad passed away right after Colton was attacked, and my focus became this place. But I’m still paying for those MC days.”

  “How?”

  “You saw my court fees? The dates?”

  “Yeah. You found trouble with the law.”

  “Not until after I dissolved the club. I was never arrested while I was running it.” He gave her the devil’s smile. “I was never caught for anything.” The smile faltered. “But dissolving the club pissed a lot of people off. I could’ve just handed it down to the ones who still wanted it up and running, but I didn’t. I destroyed it from the inside out so that it could never exist again.”

  “So you get in fights over it?”

  Trigger nodded once. “So I fight.”

  “Can’t you stop?”

  “I don’t have it in me to back down, Ava. You should know that about me now. It won’t ever change. If someone wants a fight, I have to give it to them. That’s the way it is.”

  “Because of the type of man you are?”

  “Because of the type of monster I am.” He twitched his head hard, just like he’d done last night when he was talking to himself on the front porch. “What about you? I want to know about your life after you left. Was it happy? Is it happy?”

  “I’m very fulfilled. I went to school, am working in the same field as the major I graduated with, I have an apartment, seven pet plants, and I cook. I have a routine, I work out, and everything about my life is in its exact right place. My financial planning business is taking off, and I’m right on the cusp of moving to a new level with bigger clients. Everything is moving in the exact direction I’ve worked for.”

  Trigger blinked slowly and straightened out one of his legs, the heel of his work boot digging into the snow. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “What question do you mean? Yes, I did.”

  “Are you happy?”

  Well that took her back. Happy? It was routine and moving in a steady incline, so yes…right? “What do you mean happy?”

  “Do you smile a lot? Do you laugh out loud, even when you’re alone? Do you have friends you depend on for bad days and good days? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you hum to yourself or sing in the shower for no reason? Being fulfilled and being happy aren’t necessarily the same thing.”

  Ava sighed and frowned. She’d never thought so deeply about this. “I guess I’ve been so focused on the outcome and where I wanted to get that I didn’t really think about singing or smiling…or…” Well, now she was feeling definitely unhappy. “You know, you don’t have to insult my life. It’s a good one. I’ve worked hard for it.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt. You were always working harder than anyone around you. I knew you would go on to be successful. Is success what makes you happy?”

  “Success is what makes me feel fulfilled. And now we’re talking in circles, and I’m confused because until this conversation, I thought I was perfectly happy. Sometimes it’s not very fun talking to you, Trigger.”

  “I get that a lot,” he offered through a dead smile.

  “You make me think, and maybe I don’t want to think about this. Maybe I was happy thinking that I was happy, and now I’m questioning things, and it’s not nice to do that to someone. Are you happy?”

  “No. Never was and never will be. There are people in this world who are made to shoulder the troubles. They’re made tougher because, from birth, their destiny isn’t to experience joy. It’s to exist, try to live a full life, and try to go out hurting as few people as they possibly can.”

  “That sounds like a very sad life. You could be happy, too, you know. Maybe find a girl who makes your heart beat a little faster and have, like, six wild little baby cowboy mini-Triggers running around here someday.”

  He chuckled and shook his head, gave his attention to the cattle drinking from the busted-up creek. “There is no girl for me, Ava. I’ve known that my whole life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wouldn’t want to saddle one with who I am. No girl deserves that. Besides, I’ve had a woman make my heart beat faster before, an
d you know what happened?”

  “What?”

  He swallowed hard and then arced a serious, golden-eyed gaze to Ava. “She left.” He rocked upward and dusted crumbs from his jeans. “I’ve got to get back to work. I need to drive the cattle back toward the barn and get some hay in them. Gotta million other things to do, too. Breakfast was…illuminating.”

  “Who left?” she asked, standing and handing him his jacket, nice and warm from her butt. “Do I know her?”

  “You know her very well.” He tipped his hat and gave her a crooked smile. “Ma’am. I sure thank you for breakfast.”

  As he walked away, a thought hit her like a lightning strike. Before she could change her mind, she called, “Was it me? Did I make your heart beat faster? Was I the one who left?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Trigger! What would make you happy?”

  He slowed and turned, walked backward a few paces as he said, “Saving my dad’s legacy.” With a sad smile, he turned back around and made his way to the black horse.

  It was her. She knew it in her bones. She’d been so wrong about Trigger when they were kids. He’d kept himself rude to her for reasons she didn’t understand. He’d kept her at arm’s length…but why?

  Saving his dad’s legacy…

  The stubborn bits of her…and the caring ones…they vowed in this moment to try to help him find happiness.

  She had two weeks, and she didn’t know how she would save this place.

  Only that she would.

  Chapter Seven

  Ava read over the top four items of the to-do list with a frown.

  Grocery shopping

  Snow boots and warmer jacket