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They’d both known. Her life wasn’t going to be long; there was no way it could be, barring a miracle. But he’d imagined that they could have something. Maybe not the kind of marriage everyone else had, but something like it.
They’d never had normal. But they’d had something pretty damned precious. In the end, being with Lindsay had changed him profoundly.
Without her... The path he had been on only ended a couple of ways. Dead young or in jail. She had saved him. And whatever he had or didn’t have now, whatever he hadn’t done...
He couldn’t regret the choices he’d made.
So, if his sixteen-year-old nephew was getting play, he had to ask himself at what point he was going to start figuring out how to live some kind of normal life.
He’d tried. Once.
He’d driven to a neighboring town and gone to a bar. He hadn’t even gotten past saying hi. The damned woman had recognized him. He was that famous guy who’d married his terminally ill high school sweetheart even knowing their life together would be short. She’d given him the saddest eyes he’d ever seen, and he’d been sure he could have gotten pity sex.
That was when he realized he didn’t want pity sex.
That had been two years ago. Two years since he’d last tried to go out and get some and had stopped himself on some kind of principle. Right about now, he was starting to think that maybe he would take pity sex.
A hot kick to his gut told him that wasn’t true. Not by a long shot.
He didn’t just want any sex. That was the thing. If he did, there were a bunch of ways to get it.
He was a man who didn’t want an emotional connection, at all, yet was unable to stomach the idea of an anonymous hookup.
He’d had enough emotional connections to last him from here to forever. He’d had an emotional connection with a woman for eight years. He didn’t want to do it again. Not ever. He valued it, over any other experience, over any other relationship, he’d ever had. He didn’t have the energy to do it again.
Lindsay had made him a better man, and he was never going to go back on that. He wouldn’t do that to her memory. Yeah, he’d given her those eight years, but she’d given them to him, too. He wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But she saw him as somebody worthwhile, and he had needed that, more than air.
Maybe that was part of why the shallow hookup thing didn’t work for him.
He almost laughed. Actually, he could see Lindsay telling him to go for it.
You’re too serious, Grant. Go have some fun.
He gritted his teeth and took another drink of whiskey. Thankfully, after that, the rest of the crew arrived, and pushed his thoughts out of that maudlin territory.
Lindy and Bea were talking about Lindy’s brother, Dane, and his recovery from a recent accident he’d suffered on the rodeo circuit. “When he’s up and around, hopefully we can get him a job on the ranch,” Lindy said.
Bea’s forehead creased. “How long do you think that will be? He was... Not so great when I saw him the other day.”
“Yeah,” Lindy said. “He’s not so great.”
Well, Grant could relate to that. Though maybe that wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been trampled by a bull. He was just... Constantly trying to figure out what the hell his life was supposed to look like.
That, he related to. The fact that your life could change completely, look nothing like you wanted it to, and you could do nothing but go on living.
Grant figured that the chances of Dane getting back to riding were slim to none. Also, knowing his brother Wyatt like he did, he knew that bull riders didn’t take kindly to the idea that they might be human, or fallible in any way.
“So what’s the deal with the new girl?” Jamie asked. “The new hire?”
“You said there was nothing different happening at the ranch,” Bennett said, looking at Grant pointedly.
“We don’t talk about every new ranch hand we bring on board.”
“This sounds like something other than a random ranch hand,” Bennett commented.
“It’s a woman,” Jamie said. “She’s young.”
“She’s twenty-six,” Grant said. All heads swiveled toward him. “She told me,” he added, knowing he sounded a little defensive. “Anyway, Jamie, she’s older than you.”
“You seem to be an expert on the subject,” Kaylee said.
“I’m not an expert,” Grant said. “But I found her this morning sleeping in one of the abandoned cabins on the property. She was homeless.”
“What?” Jamie asked.
Bea was looking at him with wide eyes. “She was homeless? She didn’t say anything about that when I talked to her today.”
Leave it to Bea to have struck up a conversation with McKenna. Bea was a collector of strays, though mostly they were of the furry variety. It didn’t surprise him that she had a soft heart when it came to people, too.
“Yeah, well, I doubt it comes up in polite conversation,” Grant said.
“She didn’t... Well, she didn’t look homeless,” Bea said. “Not that there’s... I mean... That sounded mean.”
“Don’t worry about it, Bea,” Lindy said, putting her hand over Bea’s. “I know what you meant.”
“I found her this morning,” Grant said. “And today she was put in my charge. So, I spent time showing her around the ranch, and helping her figure out the job.”
“I invited her to come out tonight,” Wyatt said. “She didn’t want to.”
“Possibly because she didn’t have money to pay for drinks,” Lindy said gently.
Wyatt frowned. “I would’ve bought her drink.”
“She probably didn’t want to assume,” Lindy said.
“Well, next time I’ll make it clear.”
“I wonder what happened,” Jamie said. “I mean, it has to be pretty rough to end up sleeping in one of those god-awful cabins on the ranch property. Those things are full of spiders.”
Yeah, Grant imagined McKenna had had it pretty tough. Not just because he’d found her curled up on the floor this morning, but because her whole demeanor was like a shield. Fully designed to keep people away from her.
“Why didn’t Luke and Olivia come tonight?” Bea asked.
“From what I heard,” Jamie said, “they couldn’t get a babysitter.”
That was when Jamie held up her cell phone and showed off pictures of Luke and Olivia’s baby. Not that she was much of a baby these days.
Grant didn’t look at the pictures. He made a show of it, but he let his eyes skim over the screen. Not that he wasn’t happy for Luke. He was. Luke was like a brother to him, and the guy had had it rough growing up. He deserved every bit of happiness with Olivia that he could get. But that didn’t mean Grant wanted to look at it.
“Does anybody want another round?” Grant stood up and gestured toward the bar. “I’m going to get another drink.”
All hands around the table went up, and Grant took that as a great excuse to take a small break away from the revelry.
He was good at that. Good at using alcohol as a distraction.
Another image of McKenna filtered through his mind. McKenna would be a damned good distraction.
He gritted his teeth, pushed that out of his mind and walked over to the bar.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u22deb780-f134-5093-9308-9c6dc72d2054)
MCKENNA COULDN’T BELIEVE she had slept all the way through the night. Not considering she’d lain down at two o’clock. But at least she was feeling revived. Renewed in some way after sleeping for so many hours. Even though it was still dark outside. She was a couple of minutes late heading over to the mess hall, but not late enough that it should matter. At least, not in her opinion. Whatever the opinion of her gruff, grumpy guide was, she didn’t know.
The conclusion she’d come to that morning that was most important was that she needed new clothes. When she got her first check from this job, that would be the thing she took care of right away.
She would also have to figure out transportation. But she didn’t want to waste money on a car. And she didn’t want to save up that long for anything. Not right now.
But today, in a pair of worn jeans, another threadbare sweater, with the heavier sweater she’d been wearing over the top of it, she was feeling slightly day-old. And then some.
At least her hair was clean. Clean and brushed and silky feeling for the first time in weeks.
As victories went, it was a small one, but she would take it.
When she walked into the mess hall, Grant was standing against the back wall, leaning against the display with the coffee on it. He lifted his cup. “You’re late.”
“I know,” she returned.
“If you know what time it is, then why didn’t you come at the right time?”
“Because it’s early? And it took a little longer for me to get ready and get over here than I realized it would.”
“Get it figured out for tomorrow,” he said, his tone hard. Uncompromising.
“Do you let anyone make mistakes?”
“Nope.”
“What about yourself?” she asked. “Are you allowed to make mistakes?”
He stared at her, the moment stretching out into two. “No,” he responded.
And the funny thing was she absolutely believed him. The gravity in his green eyes was far too severe for her to even consider that he might not be deadly serious.
“Come on,” she said, reaching past him and grabbing a coffee cup, her elbow brushing against his solid midsection. She clenched her teeth, trying not to think about just how solid that midsection was. “Mistakes are like walnuts in the cookies of life.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It would be better without them, but somehow they end up in there half the time, anyway.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, lifted upward slightly, and McKenna’s heart leaped up half a foot in response. She didn’t know why she was reacting to him. He was hot. Big deal. Men were often hot. Sure, not commonly as hot as this one, but whatever.
Of course, there was no reason to be too...too guarded with him. He’d been nice to her, and anyway, it was better for her if he liked her. Or whatever his version of liking someone might be.
“Careful,” she said. “You almost smiled at me.”
“Won’t happen again.”
She arched a brow. “Does that make your smile a mistake, Grant?”
“No,” he said. “Just an unplanned facial tic.”
“Damn. You’re a hard case.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that one.”
He took a sip of his coffee and her eyes were drawn to his mouth. She had never really been into the cowboy thing or the beard thing. But she liked his. His mouth was... Well, it could almost be called pretty. Except for all the ruggedness that surrounded it. She shouldn’t be staring at it.
She popped the lid on her coffee cup and lifted it. “I’m ready.”
“Just fifteen minutes late now,” he said.
She chose to ignore that. She had hot coffee. She wasn’t going to spoil it with a fight. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve woken up to some decent coffee.” She took a long sip. “It’s blessed.”
“Blessed?”
“If there was a patron saint of caffeinated beverages I’d be saying a prayer of thanks to him right about now. Or her.”
“So tell me,” he said, pushing away from the coffee stand, the only indication that he was ready to get moving. McKenna started to follow him out the door. “How exactly did you find yourself in a position where you’re waking up without coffee in the morning?”
Her stomach twisted, her guard going right back up.
She squinted at him, trying to read his face. “Why do you want to know that?”
“I’m curious,” he said. “Also, maybe wanting to make sure you didn’t murder someone and are now on the run.”
“I told you I wasn’t on the run from the law,” she said.
“It’s entirely possible you’re running from becoming identified by the law. Which makes you not on the run from the law on a technicality.”
“No,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that makes me on the run from the law on a technicality actually.”
“Whatever.”
“It’s a whole series of bad choices, Grant,” she said, trying to sound light and not ashamed or depressed. “The main one being that I got screwed out of my apartment and my deposit and decided to come here.”
“Why here?”
“I found out that I have... A family connection. But I’m not sure how to approach it. You know, since random family members showing up at the front door aren’t always welcome.” She wasn’t going to tell him about what the family relationship was. Certainly wasn’t going into the fact that she was Hank Dalton’s secret baby.
