Rebel Cowboy (4 page)

“You sure do like your delusions.”

“They aren’t half-bad.” Besides, she was almost smiling instead of looking sad. He’d managed to cheer her up, maybe. That was new. Kind of a nice feeling.

“You’ll leave too, you know.” And all at once, her smile was gone. She didn’t look at him; instead, she looked out at the sky. It was a gorgeous blue, interrupted only by distant mountains.

“I’m not sure it’s permanent, but I’m not building this place to never come back to.”

“You’ll leave,” she said with such certainty it was hard not to believe her. “People like you don’t belong here.”

He was used to people having zero faith in him outside of a hockey rink, so he wasn’t sure why that struck him as a personal insult. That he didn’t—couldn’t—belong. But it hit, and it hit deep. “What does that—”

“I’m going to call Buck and see if he knows anything about the llama.” She walked away before he could argue with her, before he could demand to know what
people like you
meant.

Well, he’d find out one way or another.

Mel was not curious. She refused to be. In fact, she was angry. Angry she was sitting here fixing Dan’s damn fence while he paced the hill, phone to his ear.

Except she couldn’t even muster
angry
, because for the first time since she’d met him, Dan was not smiling or joking or even looking a little sad and wistful.

He was
furious
. Every step he took seemed to be a personal attack on the ground beneath him. She was all the way down the hill, but she could occasionally hear a sharp curse reverberate in the air.

The call was important. She couldn’t argue that fact away. She couldn’t sit here not doing anything either, even if this was his responsibility. If she didn’t do anything, she’d start thinking again, and she was tired of thinking.

Thinking about Dad. Mom. The stupid dream she’d had last night that had left her feeling lonely and a little achy. The conversation with Dan about friendships didn’t exactly help.

Especially since he’d been
very
friendly in her dream.

It had been a while, on that front. Which she could deal with. Did deal with, quite fine actually. It wasn’t like sex was some kind of magical experience, no matter what fantasies dreams might offer.

The friendship thing was harder to roll with. The fact of the matter was, she
was
alone, because even though her brother provided a certain amount of company, she kept a lot from him. As much as they told each other everything was going to be okay, she was pretty sure neither of them believed it.

It would be nice to have someone hug her, tell her that, and somehow convince her that it was true. Like Tyler had been able to when things were easy. But things weren’t easy anymore. So, someone to care might be nice, but that was not in the cards.

She was an island, and while it was better that way, sometimes the loneliness was a bit much. It made Dan enticing. More so than he should be.

Forgetting that he would ultimately leave risked more than she had to lose.

It took a certain something to stay here, in this dying town, surrounded by so many people with sob stories, struggling to get by. It was not for cheerful people who liked to flirt and laugh. People who were used to a certain way of life, who could throw their money around and have all their problems vanish.

Blue Valley was for people who were either too stubborn to leave or didn’t have a choice. She was little bit of both.

Dan was neither of those things.

So, whatever achy feelings she harbored for a guy she’d known all of twenty-four hours, they were stupid. A friendship with him would be stupid. There were too many holes in her heart to willfully add another.

After a few minutes of almost complete silence, Dan made his way down the hill. It was like seeing a completely different side of him—every muscle in his body tense, a scowl so deep it dug grooves in his face, making him look more his age.

Thirty-five. That was totally way too old for her anyway.

“Everything okay?” The words slipped out despite her knowing better. She should not be getting involved in his non-ranch business. Not asking if he was all right. They weren’t friends. He was her meal ticket. The end.

The anger all but waved off him, and whoever had pissed him off should be glad they weren’t here. She was pretty sure if Dan had the source of his anger in front of him, it’d be bruised and bloody.

He didn’t answer her question, thank goodness, but he looked at his phone, then out in the distance. Pulling his arm back, he hurled it into the overgrown brush on the other side of the falling-apart fence. It landed with a thump far away.

Mel looked at the field, then at him. “Feel better?”

He sighed. “Fuck no. I need that damn phone.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and uttered about every curse word known to man.

Then he stomped into the field, cursing all the while, looking for his phone. It took him a few minutes, but he found it and shoved it deep into his pocket. Mel moved her focus to removing the rotted fence post from its hole, biting her tongue so she wouldn’t ask. She didn’t need to know. It was none of her business.

Screw it; she had to ask.

“Okay, so what’s the deal? Why are you suddenly full of rage? Next thing I know you’ll get all big and green and start smashing things.”

He snorted. “The NHL doesn’t want to conduct a formal investigation into whether or not I took bribes to screw up the game, which screws me, because I’m damn innocent, and now I can’t prove it. And no team will take me. And…” He took a deep breath, but it didn’t loosen any of the tension in his face. If anything, it only centered it. “I need to pound something into dust.”

“Here.” She handed him a post and a mallet, pointing at the hole in the ground where the old rotting fence post had been. “Pound away.”

He stared at the tools, then shrugged. “What the hell.” He wedged the post into the ground, then took the mallet. On a deep breath, he lifted it over his head.

She didn’t think she’d fallen into that
Thor
movie, but she’d keep watching just to be sure.

The fitted T-shirts he always seemed to wear weren’t practical for ranch work, as she’d tried to tell him, but she was a little glad he hadn’t listened, as the thin cotton clung to the line of his back, his muscles an almost graceful wave of tension and then release.

When the mallet came down, biceps and forearms absorbing the impact of rubber on wood, he barely even paused before he was swinging the mallet back up and bringing it down again.

It was all done with a mesmerizing grace…and was it suddenly really hot? The temperature must have jumped ten degrees at least.

Once he’d pounded the post way farther into the ground than it needed to go, she cleared her throat. “That’s probably enough.”

He looked at the post, slowly dropped the mallet from its cocked position behind his shoulder to the ground. “Guess I got carried away.”

“A bit.” So had she, watching him. Shoulder and arm muscles bunching as he’d lifted the mallet and then brought it down hard. Oh, hard. Muscles.
Crud.
“Feel better?” She hoped he did, because she sure as hell didn’t.

“Yeah, I do.” He took a ragged breath, let it out.

“Can I ask?”

He sighed with a tiredness she recognized, because she felt it almost daily. The kind of exhaustion that wasn’t so much physical as emotional, because you knew you had to keep fighting, but you didn’t think you’d ever get to stop.

“Ask away,” he said with a grand hand gesture, leaning against one of the sturdier fence posts.

“What
did
happen?” None of her business, and knowing probably made all her attempts at not befriending him useless, but, oh damn well.

“I… I don’t know. Two years ago it was a fluke. I was thinking too much about the next play, about how this would be it, the thing that put me over the top, and I lost sight of the puck. Never done that, but I wanted that Cup. I wanted it so bad, and I was an idiot.”

“And last time?”

He kicked at the ground. “I had that moment stuck in my head. Playing like a loop. All I could think was
don’t fuck it up again
, but I did. They’re not lying when they say professional sports is more mental than physical, Mel. Some guys have all the physical talent in the world, but they can’t handle the pressure. I didn’t think that was me, but one mistake and I can’t move past it. I’m not any good at fixing my mistakes, never have been.”

Oh, crud, crud, crud.
He just
had
to make her feel sorry for him.

“Well, if that’s true, why would anyone think it’s criminal?”

“I’m too good to be that bad only when it matters.” He shrugged like it was indisputable fact. “I don’t really want to talk about this anymore. Can we just pound shit?”

“Right, yeah.” She looked back at the mangled fence, the supplies they’d bought yesterday. They needed to get a few more posts in, pour the quick-set concrete.

“Out of curiosity, do you believe me?” he asked.

He was staring at her earnestly. Like her answer mattered, even though they both had to know it shouldn’t. “I don’t have any reason not to believe you,” she said carefully.

“Well, I guess that’s something. Thanks.” He gave her shoulder an awkward pat, and she tried to ignore the fact that he was close. Kind of sweaty. S
o hot.

Cruddy crud crud.

* * *

“Well, no one I’ve found is interested in taking the llama off your hands, but the straw we left will do for tonight. I’ll do some more searching tomorrow.”

Dan stood on his porch, watching Mel tick things off her list. There was an unfamiliar panic jumping around in his gut at the prospect of being left alone in this tiny old house in the shadow of imposing mountains. “Yeah, sure.”

“We’ll set her up some grazing space tomorrow. If no one wants her, I guess that makes you the lucky owner. Just leave the ham for your own dinner.”

Dan looked at the house behind him. Though the kitchen was now well stocked after yesterday’s grocery store outing, the thought of making dinner…dinner alone…

“You want to stay for dinner?” It was a pathetic invitation, but he was feeling pathetic. Lonely. If he didn’t distract himself, he might do something stupid. He had no idea what kind of trouble he could get up to in the middle of nowhere, but he didn’t trust himself.

“No, thanks.”

“Ouch. No conscience over leaving me here by my lonesome night after night?”

“Two nights and no conscience at all.” But the way she studied him, frowning, undercut the words. She did care, or she’d already be out the door. He worked on his best pathetic look, until she sighed.

“Look, if you really want a decent dinner and some company, you can come with me.”

“Come with you?”

“To Shaw. I was planning on cooking for my brother and dad.”

“You’re inviting me to your house for dinner? For dinner cooked by
you
?” Now he felt really pathetic. Mel Shaw was pity-inviting him to dinner.

“If I have to cook for two assholes, I might as well cook for three. Do
not
tell my dad or brother I called them assholes, but it really gets my goat that I’m expected to cook just because I have breasts and don’t want to eat pizza every night.”

“Gets your goat, huh?”

“You want a decent meal, you shut up and get in the truck.”

He wasn’t going to argue with that, and it might be interesting to see her operation. He hadn’t thought much about her living situation. He figured she’d sprouted from the ground, snarky cowgirl fully formed. No father involved.

But he climbed into her truck, and she drove away from his grandparents’ ranch and toward Blue Valley’s sad little Main Street. It was only seven, but almost every establishment was closed except the diner and what appeared to be some hole-in-the-wall bar.

Back outside of Blue Valley, driving toward the mountains that always seemed to be just out of reach, he glanced at Mel. She had her hands tight on the wheel as she navigated bumpy country roads.

She’d thrown her hat in the backseat, and the braid she usually wore was falling out of its band at the bottom. It had done that yesterday too, strands unraveling from the rigid line of hair she showed up with each morning.

He’d probably never spent so much time wondering about someone before. At least someone who wasn’t himself or an opponent on the ice. But Mel was like no one he’d ever known. Or maybe he’d just never started paying attention until hockey was out of the picture. Until everything was out of the picture.

She turned onto a dirt road that curved up and around a hill. In the valley below, a few buildings seemed to nestle into the earth, like they were sunk there, not built on top. If his place looked old, this place looked ancient. Deserted versus well-used, but both with the heavy weight of the mountains settled on top.

“Here she is,” Mel said, driving onto gravel and winding down toward a cabin-type house. It was bigger than his place, two stories. There was a porch in the front and one above on the second story. A little saggy, a little worn, but it looked cozy. Inviting. A
family’s
home.

Mel pulled in front of a detached garage. She paused as if she was going to say something, but then shook her head and got out of the truck, so he followed suit.

She led him to a side door and stepped into the type of room Mom had always made him throw his gear into. A mudroom, she’d called it, though hockey had never had anything to do with mud.

Obviously ranching did, if the muddy rubber mat on the floor was any indication.

“Lose the shoes, Sharpe,” Mel ordered, pulling her own off.

“But I’m not wearing boots.”

“You should be. I don’t mop, so we don’t do shoes in the house. Lose them. And while we’re on the subject, you really need to get a working wardrobe.”

“Are you going to
Pretty Woman
rancher me?”

“Are you a hooker with a heart of gold?”

He laughed and followed her farther inside, reminding himself not to stare at her ass while in her family’s house. Even he had manners sometimes.

They stepped into a dim, spacious kitchen that looked much more up-to-date than the one back at his ranch, although not nearly as modern as his place in Chicago.

A young man walked in from another entrance. “Hey, Mel. Oh…”

“Caleb, this is Dan. Dan, my brother Caleb.” She gave Caleb a nudge when he walked over to her. “Do not feed his ego. I have enough problems with this one,” she muttered.

Dan shook the man’s outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Big fan,” Caleb said in a low voice, glancing at Mel over his shoulder.

She scowled, but went to the refrigerator and started pulling out ingredients. “I’m going to get the food started. Caleb, be useful and make Dan be useful with you.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

While Mel made dinner, Dan helped Caleb set the table. It was all very homey and weird. He’d never really had homey, that he could remember. Before his life had been hockey, hockey, and more hockey…well, he didn’t remember that time—didn’t particularly want to. The months leading up to his parents’ decision to get divorced had been…not good for him, but when Dad had put him on the ice and told him his troubles didn’t matter there, his whole life had become hockey. And since it had saved him, even Mom hadn’t been able to argue.