Rebel Cowboy (3 page)

She popped a fry into her mouth and took another bite of burger, stalling for as long as she could, but he wasn’t giving in. He kept eating, watching her, waiting for an answer.

“Look, I read a few articles about…the game, and that article in
Bright Lights
. Which said you were thirty-five, by the way.”

He let the first part slide off his shoulders. She looked more embarrassed by it than accusatory, and he didn’t feel like dwelling on the bad. Not when she’d also looked at his
Bright Lights
spread. “Okay, so I’m thirty-five.
Bright Lights
, though—I was shirtless in some of those pictures. Were you reading
only
for the articles?” He popped the last bite of hamburger in his mouth. Would it be wrong to order another?

“No wonder you’re in such great shape. Carrying around that ego must be hard work.”

He leaned back in the booth, crossing his arms behind his head. “There you go, complimenting my body again. Maybe
I
should be concerned about sexual harassment.”

“I kind of hate you.”

He grinned. He wasn’t all that convinced of that. She might not laugh at his jokes like she did with Barney Fife and Andy Griffith over there, but she’d worked relentlessly to help him out this morning. Being honest about Grandpa and everything had softened her up. “I think you hate that you
don’t
hate me.”

“Can we go, or are you going to lick the grease off your plate too?”

He looked down at his completely demolished plate. Licking the grease off didn’t seem half bad, but she was already scooting out of the booth. She slapped the bill to his chest when he stood. “Lunch is on you.” She pointed to the cash register and then walked to the door.

Though not before smiling at Cop 1 and Cop 2, of course.

Scowling, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He handed a credit card and the bill to the harried woman who’d dropped their plates off. Well, he’d make sure to leave her a nice tip.

She smiled, shaking her head. “Sorry. We don’t take credit cards.”

“Wait.
What?
” She couldn’t be serious. Everywhere took credit cards. Even Nowhere, Montana, had to take credit cards.

The lady laughed, and so did the cops sitting at the counter, one tapping something into his phone. “Mel said you’d about die over that.” She took his outstretched card and ran it through the machine, still chuckling to herself.

She handed him the receipt, dimple winking as she smiled. “Welcome to town, Mr. Sharpe.”

“Yeah, gee, thanks.” He signed the receipt, leaving her a more than generous tip in hopes she’d help him get Mel back at some point. Never underestimate the power of money.

He nodded to the cops. “Good to see you fellas hard at work.”

“Told you he was an asshole,” one of them muttered as Dan walked away…realizing a little belatedly that pissing off the local police probably wasn’t in his best interest.

When he stepped outside, Mel was leaning against the building, arms across her chest as they almost always were, but she was smirking.

“Some joke,” he said.

Mel laughed, the sound surprising him. She had a good laugh. Low and genuine. And her smile softened her face. She wasn’t intimidating when she smiled. “Man, you should have seen the look on your face.”

“How could you—”

She held up her phone—a pathetic old flip phone— and he had to squint at the screen to see the picture of him with mouth slightly ajar, eyes a little bugged out.

“Where the hell—”

“Garret.” She laughed again. “You deserved that one, Sharpe. Now, let’s go. We’ve got food to buy and shit to do.”

He snatched the phone out of her hands, but she only shrugged and started walking to the truck. He followed, trying to figure out how to delete the picture on her relic. He finally figured it out, only to run into someone in the process.

When he looked up, a kid and a bike were on the ground.

“Aw, shit, kid, I’m sorry.” He went to help him up, but the boy was already popping to his feet, brushing his knees off and retrieving his baseball hat.

“It’s okay.” The kid grinned at him like he’d found a pot of gold instead of fallen off his bike. “You’re Dan Sharpe, aren’t you?”

Dan used to love this stuff. Kids recognizing him, idolizing him. Now he was always a little worried they’d call him a cheater or spit in his face.

Instead, the kid kept smiling and started digging in his bag. “Hey, if I can find a marker, will you sign my backpack?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Sweet.” The kid pulled out a Sharpie and handed it to him. Dan went through the requisite “do you play hockey” and “who’s your favorite team” spiel.

Then he helped the kid with the bike and handed the kid’s backpack to him. “See ya round.”

When he finally joined Mel at the truck, she was scowling at him.

“What? I was being nice.”

“I know. That’s the problem,” she muttered, climbing into the driver’s seat.

“How is that a problem?” he asked once he was settled into the passenger’s seat.

“I want you to be a bad guy.”

“Why?”

“So I can laugh at you when you fail,” she said in all seriousness, pulling the truck out of the diner parking lot.

“Are you saying you
won’t
laugh at me if I fail?”

She sighed. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Although I’m disappointed in myself for having that kind of heart.” She drove in silence out of Blue Valley and the fifteen minutes to a bigger town and a grocery store.

“You’ll want to stock up. Felicity’s General Store back in Blue Valley has a lot of the basics, but the hours and selection are limited,” she advised, all business again. Any hint at that momentary softening or camaraderie gone. She was the boss man—or woman, as the case may be. He was the lowly serf, paying her a chunk of change to tell him what to do.

They got to the grocery store, and she told him to get what he wanted while she looked around. They separated and Dan searched for all means of easy-to-prepare foods. Easy Mac. Frozen pizza. Yeah, he was really going to need some kind of workout plan if this was going to be his diet.

Maybe he could hire a cook. Maybe he could hire Mel to cook for him.

He happened down the personal hygiene aisle, the condom display catching his eye. It wasn’t like he was so certain he was going to sleep with anyone up here, but it couldn’t hurt to have some on hand. Especially if he hired a cook. Although that would probably be wrong.

If he was thinking a little bit about Mel, well, he was a guy.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Buying condoms.” He plucked a box off the shelf and grinned at her.

She made a kind of squeaking noise as her face went pink.

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan on using them with you. Unless you ask nicely.”

“Fuck off, Sharpe.”

“I’ll take that as a no. I’m good at reading signals like that.”

“You’re…you’re…” She took a deep breath, doing that “look up at the sky” thing she did when he really irritated her. Then she glared. A lesser man might slump down, shrink away, apologize, but he was not a lesser man.

“You’re trying to piss me off,” she finally said. “Possibly your natural state is trying to piss people off.”

“Possibly.”

“One of these days, it’s going to kick you in the ass.”

He could tell her it already had, because if he was the type of guy who hadn’t gotten a rise out of pissing people off, he’d probably have a few more teammates jumping to defend him.

Instead, he was on his own. His agent fought for him because, well, money, and Dad was mostly trying to avoid the situation, keep his nose clean. As he should. Dad didn’t deserve to be dragged into his crap. No one did.

“Can we
go
? It’s going to be dark by the time we get home at this rate.”

Home. Funny. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought of somewhere as home. But this very well could be his home now. A nice concept. A silver lining to all the other shit.

So, he smiled at Mel, dropping the condoms into the cart. “Sure thing, honey.”

“I’m waiting in the car,” she grumbled, stomping away.

Yeah, this potentially-being-home thing was a bit of a silver lining after all.

Mel pulled her truck into the garage and sat there for a few minutes. She was starving, but the chances of Dad or Caleb having made something for dinner were slim. She was exhausted, but she’d have to double-check all of Caleb’s work today or she wouldn’t sleep.

Today had not gone at all like she’d anticipated. She couldn’t pin Dan down. Parts of him were exactly what she’d expected of a spoiled professional athlete. But parts…well, she could admit in the solitude of her truck cab that parts of him definitely got to her.

In not totally unpleasant ways. Luckily, she wasn’t stupid enough to go down that road. Just because something wasn’t unpleasant didn’t mean it was worth going after. Because nothing as shiny and loaded as Dan Sharpe stuck around Blue Valley for very long.

She hopped out of the truck, willing those thoughts away. Right now she needed to focus on food, chores, Dad, and then, if she was lucky, sleep.

Color was creeping into the valley even as it disappeared from the sky. A slow turn to green, hints of pinks and blues, riots of yellow, a big burst, and then gone again.

Usually it was her favorite time of year. The promise of warmth and life and color. Today she missed winter a little bit. The harsh reality of it. The grays, the biting cold.

“You are one sick puppy,” she muttered, pushing into the main house through the back door. She pulled her boots off and dropped them on the mat, trying not to cringe over the fact that Caleb’s weren’t there, which probably meant he’d tracked.

She stepped into the kitchen, where Caleb stood at the counter, still wearing his boots. But he smiled at her, and hey, he was the only one most days, so she gave him a smile back.

Dan smiles at you quite a lot.

“Pizza,” Caleb offered, a plate full of crumbs in front of him. “There’s one of those bag salad things you hate in the fridge.”

“You know, having a penis doesn’t make you incapable of making actual food.”

“Oh, and here I thought it was always flopping around, getting in the way.”

She shook her head and pulled open the fridge. A lot nicer fridge than Dan’s. Probably the only nicer thing she had than him—till he replaced it. “Men are pigs.”

“Beer in the fridge too.”

“Hallelujah. I’ll consider you a little less of one.” Mel rummaged around in the fridge until she’d gotten everything she wanted. “Dad eat?”

“I made him up a plate, but I haven’t checked in.”

“Fiona have any problems?” Mel asked. The nurse that came in three times a week to help Dad was a saint and rarely complained if Dad was rude, but occasionally…

“She didn’t say anything.”

Mel put the beer and salad down on the counter, then stared at it, trying to work through all the exhaustion that made her feel so damn helpless.

“I can fix you the salad.”

“Don’t baby me, I might cry.”

“Don’t cry, I might run.” He was smiling when she looked at him, but she knew he was exhausted too.

“Maybe…maybe if this money pulls through, we can hire someone on.” She unscrewed the cap of the bottle of dressing and poured some into the bag, shaking it a little before grabbing a fork.

“
If
the money pulls through? Bad first day?”

“No, just weird.” She popped the top to her beer and guzzled the first drink.

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know. The guy is hard to make sense of. He’s a cocky bastard.”

“Well, you were expecting that, right?”

“Yeah, but…” She couldn’t explain to Caleb that she didn’t hate him for it. She didn’t know how to explain that to herself. He was arrogant and way too flirty, but he took everything in such easygoing stride.

Maybe that was it. He could look at life and see easy, and she had never known people like that. Shaws were so bound and determined to make everything damn hard.

“I’m just tired. Tell me how things went here.”

“I checked off every chore on your list, madam taskmaster.”

“I only meant—”

“I know what you meant, and I’m not going to get pissy about it. I did what you wanted me to do. You want to grill me or check my work, you can, but you’ve got enough shit on your plate, Mel. Trust me to handle it, please. If you keel over, I’m really screwed.”

She took a deep breath, then tossed the bag onto the counter and grabbed a pizza off the little cardboard circle it rested on. Nearly cold, but better than slightly browning bagged lettuce.

“But you’ll…” She tried to rein in all the emotions exhaustion was letting free. “You promise me if there’s a problem you can’t handle, you’ll bring it to me. Even with everything on my plate. I need to know—”

“We’re not losing this place. I promised you that when Dad was in the hospital, and I’m not going back on it.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded.

“I’m sorry that I ever made you doubt—”

She waved it away. “We’ve had our apologies and our tears and our come-to-Jesus moment. I don’t want to rehash it. Things are fine. We’re getting there.” She popped the last bite of unsatisfying pizza in her mouth. “I’m going to go check on Dad.”

“I’ll come with. Maybe we can talk him into watching some TV in the same room as us or something.”

She wasn’t sure she was feeling sturdy enough to be rebuffed by Dad right now, but Caleb was so determined. She couldn’t argue with him.

But when she stepped into the living room, they were greeted by Dad’s snoring, soft and even. “Well, so much for family togetherness,” she whispered, going over to grab his—thankfully empty—dinner plate.

She noticed the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s that had most definitely not been half-empty this morning peeking out from a blanket lying on the ground.

Dad had never been much of a drinker, even these few years after the accident, but occasionally…

Yup, when she pulled back the blanket, there was the old family album. She didn’t know where he kept it. It always disappeared after one of these episodes.

The fact that it was opened to a picture of her mother, the mother she looked more and more like with every passing year—made her feel cold all over. Why did she have to look like that woman?

“It doesn’t mean anything, Mel.” Caleb nudged her arm. “He was over it a long time ago. All his stuff now is about the wheelchair, not her.”

Mel wondered if Caleb believed it, because she sure as hell didn’t. Not that she could change any of it. There was no going back. Only forward.

She dropped the blanket back in place, letting it hide Dad’s sins, so to speak. “I’m going to go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Mel…”

When she stopped in the doorway, Caleb didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he said, “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to make it okay.”

“I know,” she lied. Then she let a little bit of the truth slide. “But what about him?”

She didn’t wait for Caleb’s answer. Couldn’t. She needed to crawl into bed and sleep away the tears burning behind her eyes.

* * *

Dan hiked toward the aging barn. Surely he could find some cell service somewhere in this godforsaken wasteland.

Okay, that was harsh. The place was pretty awesome-looking, especially with the sun rising over the mountains. The hills were green, and the sky seemed impossibly blue. In the early morning light, the barns and older, ramshackle buildings didn’t look so much like they were out of a horror movie. And, hey, the trek around the property was getting him a little cardio.

He reached the top of the swell of land. To his right was an old barn-type thing. There seemed to be little enclosures for animals inside. If he had to guess, he’d say it had been used for horses.

He held up his phone, but a strange noise made him jump and drop the thing. “Shit,” he muttered, bending to pick it up. When he straightened, he let out a yelp of surprise.

There was a thing. A not-small furry animal thing standing at the fence, staring at him expectantly.

He stared back at the animal, then helplessly at his phone. Hey, cell service. He googled random animal names he thought the thing could be until he found a picture that looked mostly right.

A llama.

How did he have a llama on his property? How had Buck not mentioned he had a llama, period? Surely the guy had been taking care of it. Llamas didn’t take care of themselves, did they? There weren’t packs of wild llamas running about Montana.

Were there?

“So, hi.” The llama didn’t respond at all. It stood there and stared at him. The thing was probably hungry. Maybe he should find it something to eat. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what you’d want to eat?”

The llama stared. Didn’t move. Dan gingerly held out his hand, but when the creature nipped toward him, he pulled back. “Okay, so either you’re very unfriendly or you’re very hungry. We have a word for that in human speak—hangry.”

He needed to feed it, and he needed to stop talking to it like it was going to talk back, because he was sounding crazy even to himself.

He backed away, then jogged down to the house. Of course when he got to his kitchen, he had no cell service to look up what llamas ate. Shit. When was Mel supposed to get here?

He poked around in his fridge before pulling out a container of lunch-meat ham. Grabbed a few pieces of bread and a bottle of water and a bowl.

Worst he could do was offer random food it wouldn’t eat. Surely he couldn’t kill a llama with a sandwich.

He trudged back out to the barn where the llama still stood against the fence. Watching him. Still. Dan slowed his pace. That thing was motherfucking creepy.

“Hey, fella, want some ham?”

It moved around, and he figured that was sign enough. He peeled back a few pieces of the lunch meat and tossed them in the llama’s direction.

“What the hell is that?”

Dan glanced to where Mel was hiking up the hill. Thank Christ she was here. “According to my research, it’s a llama.”

“Why do you have a llama?” She approached, hands on her hips, wrinkling her nose at the creature before them.

“I don’t know. It was just here.”

“What are you feeding it?”

“Ham.”

“Ham?
Ham?
You can’t feed a llama ham.”

“Well, then what do I feed it?”

“Hell if I know, but not ham!” She made her way to the fence, then gingerly pulled the pieces of ham out of the grass at the llama’s feet. “Grain. Straw. Bread. Something remotely sensible.”

“I maybe panicked a little bit.”

“I see that.”

“I know you’re a genius cowgirl and all, but tell me you wouldn’t panic if you got the crap scared out of you by a llama.”

“My panic rarely involves ham,” she said drily.

“Fair enough.”

She stared at the creature, and Dan couldn’t help noticing she looked a little more haggard than she had yesterday. Her hat was pulled down low, but he could see circles under her eyes, and she looked pale. Even the way she stood was different. Slumpy instead of that ramrod straight “I’ve got this shit covered” posture she’d walked around with
all
day yesterday.

“You okay?”

She gave him an are-you-crazy look, all scrunched-up nose and drawn-together eyebrows. She seemed to give him that look a lot for only knowing each other about twenty-four hours.

“You look…” He tried to think of a diplomatic way of telling her she looked like death warmed over. But he didn’t have much practice being diplomatic, so he came up empty.

“I look what?”

“I don’t know. Like you had a crappy night of sleep.”

“Perceptive for a man with his head so far up his ass he feeds a llama processed meat.”

“It wasn’t because of me, was it?” He didn’t like the sudden guilty weight in his gut. Sure, he was paying her a shitload of money to be here, but he didn’t want to be making her life miserable in the process.

“Don’t flatter yourself, wannabe cowboy.”

“I meant because you hate me, not because you were up all night fantasizing about me—but if we want to pretend it was the latter, I’m all for it.”

She let out a gusty sigh. “Believe it or not, I have bigger problems in my life than you.”

“Like what?”

“What do you care?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Maybe we should be friends.”

She snorted. “You don’t need me to be your friend. You need someone to kick your ass every morning. And you need someone to figure out what the hell to do with your llama.”

“That almost sounds dirty.”

“Buck didn’t tell you about this?”

Dan shook his head. “Didn’t mention it to you either?”

“No.”

“No chance it’s a wild llama?”

“Yes, Sharpe. It’s a wild llama that hopped a fence, went into a stall, and is desperate to eat your ham.”

“That
also
sounds dirty.”

“You are giving me a headache.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. Her plaid shirt was green and blue today, and while the serviceable work shirts she wore didn’t do much to show off her figure, the jeans did admirable things for her—

“Stop staring at my ass, Sharpe.”

“Sorry.” Sort of.

“Let’s figure out how to take care of this llama, huh?”

“You can’t tell me taking care of llama problems together
isn’t
friendship.”

She glanced at him. “Don’t have a lot of friends, do you?”

“Not really.” Which he’d never spent much time thinking about, but it was true. Once upon a time he’d counted his teammates as friends, but he’d always been a little bit apart. Not quite one of the group. Probably because he was a jerk, and his dad was a legend. Probably because at the first threat of any complex relationship, he bolted. “What about you?”

She shrugged. “Haven’t had much time for friends the past few years. Besides, not many people stick around Blue Valley.”

“So, how do you have time for this?”

“Twenty grand, Dan. I have a lot of time for twenty grand.”

“Hey look, we’re becoming friends already.”

“Because you’re paying me?”

“Because you called me Dan. Not Sharpe or asshole or moron. You called me
Dan
.” He smirked. “We’ll be best friends before you know it.”