Montana Darling (Big Sky Mavericks Book 3) (10 page)

“Okay.” He got up, too. “That works. I’d like to meet your mother.”

“What? Nooo.” Even to Mia’s ears the word came out close to the frequency of an osprey going in for a kill. “You can’t. Good grief, no. You are the enemy. Well, not exactly, but I’m not prepared to open this can of worms in front of my parents. They’ve been through enough. I’ll tell them my contractor was delayed and I may have to postpone building. That’s all they need to know for now.”

“First, I’m the enemy, then a can of worms? That’s flattering. Why’d you kiss me?”

She marched away, hoping he’d head in the other direction…toward her…his…the property.

He didn’t, of course. He jogged after her and stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. She tensed and automatically braced defensively as she’d learned in kickboxing. He let go and held out the small bag. “You paid for them.”

She felt stupid and embarrassed and rude. She started to apologize, but a movement near the spot where they first entered the tracks distracted her. People? Witnesses to her bad behavior?

She put a hand up to shade her eyes. “Oh, no. Hell, no. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. Not again.”

She shoved the bag in Ryker’s general direction and marched away, her heart thudding so hard in her chest it felt like it might break a rib.

“Wait. Where are you going?”

He followed, of course. What was it about men that made them so damn obtuse? Couldn’t he tell her already shitty life just hit another road bump?

“Who’s that?” he asked, his voice dropping so the young couple standing together huddled over some sort of contraband didn’t hear their approach.

Both wore ear buds, Mia saw. The boy, a lanky, younger version of the bad influence Emilee picked back in Cheyenne. This one was closer to her age, at least. But neither of them was old enough to buy cigarettes. At least, she hoped the slender trail of smoke that rose between them was from cigarettes not something worse.

Emilee was the first to notice people moving in her direction.

Her epithet was the one her grandmother hated the most.

“My daughter,” Mia said, answering Ryker’s question. “Repeat truant and soon to be grounded for life.”

*

Ryker felt the
sea change, like a fast moving arid Sirocco the moment it hit the Mediterranean.

Look out, Italy, here comes the perfect storm, he thought, studying the two high school students. Young. Freshmen, maybe? The girl was an inch or two taller than her mom. Slim with long, thick, medium brown hair tinged with artificial-looking black highlights. Her eye make-up, while not classic Goth, was too heavy-handed to be fashionable. Ryker’s brief stint in the New York fashion industry had taught him more than he ever wished to know about make-up and women’s insecurities.

But, bad make-up or not, she shared Mia’s lovely nose and expressive mouth. He wished like heck he and Mia were still making out on the tracks, because the look of pain and disappointment on Mia’s face wasn’t easy to take. He liked her. He didn’t like seeing her hurt and upset.

“I gotta go,” the boy said, dropping his barely lit cigarette to the ground.

Ryker squashed it with his heel. “Dude. Litter. Not to mention a deplorable lack of balls.” He picked up the thoroughly flattened butt and held it out to the boy.

The kid’s lip curled back in a snarl, but Ryker wasn’t worried. He’d dealt with worse. He pinned the kid with the Bensen stare. The fearful, piss-your-pants inducing glare his brother taught him right after Ryker’s first fight in high school. “The key is making sure you mean it,” Flynn said. “Never use the stare unless you’re prepared to inflict—and receive—pain. If you’re truly committed, the other person will usually back down. Usually.”

Ryker stared. The kid swallowed hard, his gaze slicing sideways to the girl he’d been prepared to toss under her mother’s bus. After a full minute of indecision, he took Ryker’s offering and stuffed it in his pocket.

“Skipping school. What are you doing out here?” She looked at Ryker. “Who are you?”

Ryker gave the girl points for deflection, but Mia snapped her fingers to regain her daughter’s attention. “None of your business. If you were in school where you are both supposed to be, you wouldn’t have met. Let’s go. Grandma’s Jeep is in front of the bakery.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Mia pulled her phone out of the pocket of her skirt. “I believe truancy is still an enforceable violation in this state. But let me ask my old friend, the chief of police, to be sure.”

Ryker’s respect for Mia shot up the scale. Well played, Mom. Would he have known to do that? Hell, no. And as much as he hated to admit it, he still hadn’t embraced the idea of fatherhood completely when the possibility had been stolen from him. If he hadn’t felt ready to be a father to his unborn baby, he sure as hell had no business looking at a relationship with a woman with half-grown kids.

“Fine. We’ll go back. Won’t we, Jarrod?”

She reached for her friend’s free hand, but Jarrod glanced at Ryker and stuck both hands in the pockets of his slouchy, low-hanging pants. The pose made him look a bit like the Elephant Man.

Mia pointed imperiously and waited. Once the kids were out of earshot, she said in a terse voice, “Em was the easiest baby on the planet. Hunter never quit crying his whole first year. Now, he’s the easy one and I’m living a teen nightmare.”

“Were you tough on your mother?”

She paused a moment. “Me? No. I was too busy trying to be perfect.”

He watched her walk away, the weight of the parenting world balanced on her narrow shoulders. He couldn’t imagine how much responsibility she must feel as a single mom. Even though he was currently broke and living in a tent, at least he was responsible for one person only—himself. And even though, rationally, he knew the universe didn’t work this way, a part of him—the part that attended Sunday school once a week as a child—wondered if Colette and their baby died because God knew what a lousy dad he’d make?

He coughed to clear the lump in his throat and bent over to pick up Emilee’s squashed cigarette, which apparently hadn’t even been lit. He hated smoking. Both of his parents smoked when he was growing up. Someone—his dad’s best friend, Dave Cornelius, Ryker thought—said at Dad’s funeral, “The cigs did him in. I’m going to quit once all this settles down.”

He didn’t. Flynn emailed Ryker a copy of Dave’s obit when Ryker was shooting a story on air pollution and the Olympics on the Great Wall. Fifty-six was too damn young.

Ryker turned and climbed the rise to the railway bed again. He retrieved his jacket and the little sack of chocolates he’d tried to give Mia. She was a complicated woman with a messy life that included two semi-grown kids. Not to mention the fact they both believed they owned the same piece of land. The smart thing would be to keep as far away from Mia Zabrinski as possible.

So why could he still feel the sensation of her lips against his? For that brief moment of connection he’d felt his focus sharpen the way it did when he found the sweet spot and intuition told him he’d just taken the best shot of his life. The money shot. Her kiss had been money-shot perfect.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.

“Ryker. It’s me, Louise. I found you a job.”

He had to blink a couple of times to re-train his focus. “A job?”

“The guy who takes yearbook photos for the school is looking for an assistant. Just a few days of work, but it pays enough to keep your nose above water until your brother calls. I’m texting you his number.”

School photos? Me? Seriously?

Hmm, he thought, realizing his ego was alive and well after all. Too bad. He had a lawyer to pay and he needed to find a place to live.

“Thank you, Louise. You are a peach. I’ll call him right away.”

“Great. I told him you were terribly over-qualified.”

“What did he say?”

She laughed in a way that made Ryker smile. “He said, ‘Aren’t we all?’”

‡

“I
hate her,
Roxy. I do.”

Emilee spoke softly, but the words seemed to echo off the stacks of boxes in her grandparents’ garage. She’d parked herself on Roxy’s giant stuffed doggie bed rather than go through the kitchen where Grandma and Mom were talking.
About me, no doubt.

Roxy snuggled a little closer, inviting more griping.

“She embarrassed me so bad today I wanted to cry. But I didn’t. Not in front of Jarrod. Like he’s ever going to talk to me again.” Emilee shoveled her fingers through the labradoodle’s silky coat. No human listened as well as Roxy. Not even her fiber arts teacher, Serena James, and she was great…for an adult.

Roxy gave a low groan of satisfaction and plopped her big head in Emilee’s lap looking upward. The expression in the dog’s chocolate brown eyes was so understanding and sympathetic Emilee almost cried. Again.

She hated emotions. Hated feeling anything. Some days, she felt like an emotional yo-yo. Okay, awful, so-so, terrible. Up and down. Never just plain fine. Nothing had been fine for so long she couldn’t remember what fine was like.

A Taylor Swift ringtone made her juggle her phone. She tapped the Face Time button as quickly as possible. Her phone was last year’s model and, judging by the number of dropped calls, it didn’t like living in Marietta any more than Emilee did.

“Hi, Em.” Reba was Emilee’s best friend in Cheyenne. “How are you?”

I hate my sucky life and want to come home, Emilee wanted to say, but she didn’t. What if she was the only person in this whole sucky world whose life went to hell in a few short months?

Went to heck, she corrected. She’d promised Grams she’d stop swearing. “Same stuff. Different day.”

“Yeah. I hear ya’. Me, too. Do you have a boyfriend, yet?”

“Not really. But there is a guy….”

“There always is with you, Em.”

Emilee wasn’t crazy about the fact her last boyfriend spread rumors about them—untrue rumors—until her mother threatened to prosecute him for statutory rape. Even though they never sex. Not once. Emilee was a virgin, but try telling Mom that.

“His name is Jarrod. He’s a junior. And after today, he’ll probably never talk to me again.” She described the whole stupid mistake. “It was Jarrod’s idea to take a walk instead of going back to math class after the fire alarm. I probably wouldn’t have gone, ’cept he’s like the first boy to really talk to me at this stupid school. What was I supposed to say? No, cute upperclassman, I can’t because my mom who has super powers will somehow magically appear out of nowhere and bust us?”

Roxy groaned and whacked Emilee’s arm with her big paw—code for: pet me.

Emilee scratched the dog’s belly, making her roll on her back with pleasure.

“What was your mom doing by the railroad tracks?”

“I have no idea. And she was with a cute guy,” Emilee whispered. “Really cute, actually.”

How her mother, who was one of the most uptight people Emilee had ever known, could attract the attention of a hottie like Backpack Guy was beyond her. Maybe it had to do with that stupid Big Sky Mavericks thing Mom and Uncle Austen and Aunt Meg were always talking about.

Reba began to grouse about some mutual friends who were turning into real a-holes because they’d been asked to homecoming and Reba hadn’t. Emilee tried to listen but she couldn’t get Mom off her mind. Reba hung up a few minutes later. Long-distance friendships sucked.

She knew her mother was juggling a lot—cancer, the divorce, moving…, but, at least in Cheyenne, Emilee had her friends to keep her distracted. Now, she was stuck in this hick town with her grandparents—who were leaving right after her uncle’s wedding—her dumb brother, and her mother—who was wound so damn tight she was going to have a heart attack long before the cancer came back and killed her.

Emilee’s only sort-of friends were her cousin, Chloe, who was too young to comprehend the pressure associated with being a new kid in high school, and Uncle Austen’s girlfriend, Serena James, who was the one adult Emilee actually could talk to without feeling judged.

Serena will understand what happened today, she thought, feeling slightly better. Serena wasn’t a pushover. She followed the rules and she’d probably tell Emilee she shouldn’t blindly try to please people without thinking about the consequences, but sh…stuff like that didn’t sound so stiff and bossy when she said it.