Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) (10 page)

ELEVEN

“I
’M STUFFED,”
E
VERLY
said, pushing away her plate and half-eaten New York strip. The Rainsong Cafe was known for nearly family-sized servings, and that included their steaks. “If I had a dog, I’d take the rest of this home.”

“I have two dogs,” Boone said. “Three when Clay brings Kevin over. I’ll be happy to take it.”

The man was incredibly transparent. And exceptionally breathtaking tonight, his long hair brushed back from his face, the ends catching in his collar. He smelled like soap and fresh air, and he made her hungry. “Why do I think the dogs will never see it?”

“Because they won’t,” he said, gesturing toward her plate with his fork. “I can eat that for breakfast tomorrow with a couple of tortillas and eggs.”

“Then you’re welcome to it,” she said, wondering how close to true the rumors ran that the Dalton Ranch was verging on bankruptcy. She hated thinking this man, so honorable and so proud, might be going without things he needed—food, fuel, equipment, clothing. Making do with the barest necessities, spending on only what was essential, rich with land and the freedom of working for himself, but living below what amounted to poverty level.

She wiped her napkin over her mouth, then laid it on the edge of her plate. “This is my treat, by the way. A business expense. Since it seems the only way we’ll ever get this interview done is for me to ask you my questions in public.”

He grunted at that, though it had been his idea. “You didn’t ask me much of anything tonight.”

She hadn’t, even though she’d learned a lot about him by enjoying his conversation and his company. “I guess that means we’ll have to do this again.”

His gaze came up from his plate to meet hers. “Your expense account have pockets that deep?”

She laughed, toyed with her napkin’s selvage. “I don’t think Whitey even looks at what I turn in.”

That earned her another grunt. “That’s because he doesn’t want to rock the boat. He knows he’s lucky to have a big city pro on his staff of amateurs.”

“I wouldn’t call them ‘amateurs.’ Everyone there does their job well.” Smoothing her fingers over wrinkles in the napkin, she thought about the last four years. “It’s just a different mindset. What counts as breaking news has a local flavor. Like Henry Lasko retiring and giving the feed store to Darcy and Josh. There’s less interest in what’s going on in Hollywood, or Washington, except as it affects beef and oil. If the residents want to know about the monetary crisis in Greece, for example, or the unemployment rate in Iceland, they’ll get that from the national news.”

He held up a finger, finished chewing before he spoke. “But if they want to know which Dalton Gang member used the back side of Lasko’s for shotgun practice, they’ll look in the archived pages of the
Reporter
.”

“Exactly.” She waited a handful of seconds, filing away that bit of Dalton Gang history, then asked, “So? Who
did
shoot up the back side of the feed store?”

His laugh was boisterous and full of secrets and like tires on gravel. “That’ll cost you another dinner. Unless one of the boys spills first.”

The boys.
All three of the men used the term. As did Arwen and Faith. She wasn’t sure if it spoke to the connection they’d made as young teens, or the Peter Pan attitude they often displayed. “Here’s what I find most interesting, and this after living here four years and going to school with Faith, and hearing about your escapades to the point where I couldn’t wait to meet all of you.”

“That so?” he asked, his dark brows lifting, and the sweep of his lashes made even darker by the contrast of his starched white shirt.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, then going on before the look in his eyes had her losing her train of thought. “Your three backgrounds are so disparate, yet none of that played into your friendship.”

“Why would it?” he asked, getting back to his food as she crossed her legs and watched him.

She enjoyed watching him. His purposeful economy of movement. His thoughtful use of the space around him. The flex of his muscles that brought to mind the ones she couldn’t see. His thighs. His pectorals. His abs that tightened into sharp relief when he came.

She closed her eyes, breathed away her arousal, looked at him again. “Dax came from one of the most influential families in Crow Hill, but had next to nothing in the way of parenting, or so I’ve gathered from what others have said. Casper had no money at all, and no parenting either, except what he got from your folks. You had the most all-American, middle-class upbringing of the three of you.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“No one would ever guess, from how close you are, that you didn’t grow up next door to each other on the same block. But take the gang out of Crow Hill, and it’s less likely you’d have run in the same circles, even if you’d all gone to the same school.”

“You forget we all played football. And we all worked for Tess and Dave. We’re different in as many ways as we’re similar. Trust me.”

“Yes, but weren’t you friends even before all of that? The football and the ranching?”

“Dax and I were. We started kindergarten together. Casper didn’t move here until seventh grade, but he fit right in.”

“Because of football?”

“Because he was a misfit.” He gave her a loose shrug. “We all were in our own way.”

Now she was really curious. “I get Casper. I even get Dax. But you?”

“Don’t let the all-American, middle-class upbringing fool you,” he said, his grin twisted.

She thought back to what Whitey had said when he’d assigned her the story. That of the three Dalton Gang members, Boone had been in more trouble than the others. And she was weighing her options for questioning him about the specifics when he reached across the table for her hand.

“What’s this scar?” he asked, holding her by the wrist and rubbing his thumb along the line of white flesh lighter than the skin of her inner arm and the width of a belt buckle’s prong.

She knew that because it had been the prong from Toby’s belt buckle that had split open her skin. He’d been sitting on her chest, his cock in her mouth, her wrists and ankles bound much like she’d bound Boone’s, only Toby had preferred leather to silk. And he’d been angry because he’d been unable to come while she sucked him. Her fault, of course. She hadn’t used her tongue in exactly the way he’d liked, going too slow when he’d wanted fast, speeding up when he’d wanted her to slow down.

While she’d been rubbing the circulation back into her wrists after he’d released her, having jacked off all over her face, he’d reached for the belt on the floor. She’d been lucky he’d waited until then, swinging when she could defend herself rather than whipping her while she was flat on her back and bound. She suppressed a shudder at the thought of the damage he could’ve done. And his attack had come out of nowhere, unprovoked, unwarranted.

No. She refused to dwell there. She’d made it out of that night with only a single scar to show for it. She didn’t count the ones she couldn’t see.

But she wasn’t going to say any of that to Boone. “I slipped on a melted ice cube and fell in my kitchen several years ago. I reached for the stove but grabbed the door. It came open and I hit the edge when I went down.”

“Stitches?”

“A few, yeah.”

“That must’ve hurt.”

“It did.” But not as much as Toby’s tears in her palm as he’d wrapped a towel around the gash before driving her to the ER. He’d tossed the belt, a very expensive Jack Spade, in their condo’s Dumpster on the way to the car. As if the symbolic gesture might actually mean something. “But being recognized in the ER was even more annoying.”

“How so?”

“It’s not always easy, living life under a microscope.” And what a hypocrite she was, complaining about the limelight when she was about to flip the switch and shine it on him.

“I can relate to that, though not in the same way. No one in a small town has any expectation of privacy.” He leaned his left forearm on the table’s edge, gestured with his hand. “You know everyone. You look out for everyone. It’s just how it is ’round these here parts.”

She smiled as she thought back to the night they’d danced. “I don’t mind being recognized here, though I’m not sure why exactly. It was just different in the city. The face people saw on TV was not the same face that showed up in the ER at midnight.”

“Did that bother you? Being seen without your war paint?”

She laughed. If he only knew. “That’s more accurate of a description than you might believe. But to answer your question, no. It didn’t bother me to be seen. It bothered me that because I didn’t want to answer questions about what had happened, I was called a bitch, or worse, when all I wanted was to live my personal life off camera. How I managed to fall in my kitchen and cut my arm on the sharp edge of the stove was nobody’s business but mine.”

Who was she kidding? The story was ridiculous. Even hearing herself repeat it to Boone had her wanting to roll her eyes. Toby had been the one to come up with the explanation for her injury. She hadn’t known what to say when the doctor had asked her what happened. She’d been so close to blurting out the truth, certain the staff already expected abuse. And then she did the very thing she’d sworn she wouldn’t do. Helped Toby cover it up and get away with it.

“Is that what made you move here? You finally got fed up?”

“In a way, yes,” she said, comfortable with that part of her reality. “There was a tipping point. And I finally tipped.”

“I’ve been wondering about that, why you’d give up a position on air in Austin to work for the
Reporter
. Can’t imagine Simmons over there can pay you close to what you must’ve been making.”

“He can’t. But the cost of living here’s a lot less. My house was a steal. And I didn’t need a new wardrobe for work.”

“You sold your place in Austin?”

She looked down at her plate. “It was my ex’s place. We dated a year. We lived together for two.”

He didn’t say anything to that, just took his knife to his rib eye, forking up one bite then slicing off another as he chewed. She twisted her hands together in her lap, glad she’d already finished eating, because her appetite was long gone. Thinking about Toby did that. Talking about him, even without mentioning his name or his crimes and fetishes, meant she wouldn’t be getting it back.

She hated that she’d let him intrude. Boone’s question had been curious, innocent. He hadn’t been prying into the disaster her relationship had been. He couldn’t have known she’d lived in Toby’s condo, couldn’t have known that was where she’d suffered most of her injuries, there in the privacy of her own home, at the hands of the only man who’d ever told her he loved her. He hadn’t. If he’d loved anyone, he’d loved himself, but she wasn’t even sure about that.

Enough,
she told herself, and tossed back her hair. She refused to give any importance to her past and risk having Boone ask more questions. So far she’d gotten off light. She was thirty-two years old. It wasn’t hard to believe she’d had a serious relationship, even though she’d been fairly naive when she and Toby hooked up.

Probably too naive, she’d thought more than once since leaving. Someone with more experience might’ve seen signs she’d missed. Looking back from this distance, it was easy to see her inability to do so was the result of a childhood she’d thought perfect, never realizing how overly sheltered she’d been.

But none of what she’d revealed would raise any red flags. And tonight, that was all that mattered.

While Boone finished mopping up his bloody steak juice with his Texas toast, Everly signaled to their server for a to-go box for her steak. The young man returned minutes later with a Rainsong carryout bag, along with their check. Everly reached for it, but Boone was quicker than she was.

“This was supposed to be a business expense,” she reminded him. “My business expense.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, glancing at the check, then leaning to the side to dig for his wallet. “One of these days when we actually talk business, you can pay. In the meantime, it’s on me.”

She would’ve suggested someplace less pricey if she’d thought Boone would insist on paying. “At least split it with me.”

He laid bills to cover the total plus the tip inside the check folder, handing it to the server as he walked by. “Keep the change.”

“Thank you, sir. Ma’am. You two enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“Are we done here?” Boone asked, once they were alone.

“As long as you tell me we’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t we be okay?”

“Because you haven’t said anything since I told you about my ex.”

He shrugged. “That’s just me not liking to think about another man having his hands on you.”

If he only knew. “I’m thirty-two years old, Boone. I had a whole different life before moving here.”

“I know.”

“Just like you had a whole different life while you were away.”

“I know.”

“Then what about my having an ex is bothering you?” She let the words hang there, a sort of a question, wondering what he was thinking and why. Wondering most of all where she fit in, and how she felt about it when she wasn’t supposed to be feeling. Just having fun.