A Man of His Word (7 page)

If only the rest of their situation could be this simple.

A horn blared behind them, nearly sending them both out of their shoes. “Hey, buddy, you call for a tow?” the driver sneered out the window.

“Think about the date,” he whispered to her as he let go of her hand.

“Okay.”

A
girl could tell a lot about a man by his vehicle. And according to the license plate, this seemed to be Dan's actual truck, not some rental. He'd driven all the way up from Texas.

Rosebud ran her hands over the premium leather of the passenger seat, trying to snoop without it looking like she was snooping. Dan had given her his keys after the tow-truck driver had called her “honey.” It felt weird to just let a man take over for her, but frankly, she'd rather sit in the truck and try to figure out Dan Armstrong than stand next to that driver and wish she had some mace.

Dan had satellite radio. Of course he did. A man like Dan wouldn't want to listen to stations with commercial interruptions. She flipped through his preprogrammed channels. Willie's Place, Outlaw Country—those she expected. Dan probably hired those famous country singers to perform at company picnics or something ludicrous like that. But what came next surprised her—Alt Nation? Lithium? A Phish song filled the cab. She blinked hard in the dim light, but the name
on the receiver stayed the same. Unreal. Not the standard cowboy tunes.

She went back on the dial until she found a Miranda Lambert song, then she looked around. The truck's interior was spotless—no crumpled-up wrappers or crushed cans underfoot, not even a layer of dust on the burled walnut dash. A shotgun hung on a rack on the rear window, but a quick look told her it either wasn't loaded or only had one round in the chamber. Did he always have that gun there, or was it just because of her “little” misfire?

She looked again. Man, it was a piece of work. The walnut stock was polished to a warm gleam, and the silver was inlaid with hunting dogs done in what looked like gold. The trigger looked like real gold, too. She didn't know much about high-end weapons, but she was willing to bet she could buy a house with the money that gun cost.

She began to feel a little out of place. Okay, a lot out of place. She'd caught glimpses of this kind of wealth during law school in D.C., but not even her boyfriend James had been this casually comfortable with the finest that money could buy. She was one step above dirt-poor. What the heck did an oil tycoon—because she was starting to realize that's what Dan was—want with the likes of her?

She was getting antsy. What was taking so long? She searched for Dan and the tow-truck driver in the rearview mirror. Dang. Dan had a heck of a rear view, all right. He was bent over the front end of her car, looking at the engine. Dan was doing a lot of pointing and the driver was doing a lot of head shaking. She didn't take all the gesturing as a positive development, which made the pit in her stomach grow a little wider. She had no idea if the hunk of steel was worth fixing, but it was the only car she had—and there was no way in hell she could afford a new one.

Lord, this seemed like a bad idea. Letting him pay for her
tow—and then letting him take her to dinner? On a date? Was Dan one of those guys who thought that dinner and car repairs guaranteed getting lucky?

She shuddered. She knew he was charming, handsome and under orders to trap her. But even given all that, she still couldn't help but feel—not think, but really and truly
feel—
that he was being totally up front with her. She thought back to their phone conversation. He hadn't said her name, or anything that would point to her.
He
wanted to ask
her
out.

She
wanted to go out with
him.
If only his last name wasn't Armstrong.

Oh, what a mess she'd gotten herself into.

Well, she knew how to test his mettle. She dug out her notes as he got back in the cab.

“He's going to give you a call when it's ready.” He set his hat on the dash and cocked his head to one side, listening to the song “Gunpowder and Lead.” “You tryin' to tell me something?” he said with a grin as he fired up the truck.

The engine purred. A slight twinge of jealousy, so small she barely noticed it at all, flittered across Rosebud's mind. Wouldn't it be lovely to have a car that just
started
whenever she wanted it to? “Purely coincidental. And I'm also not a crazy ex-girlfriend.”

Dan gave her a long look—long enough that Rosebud suddenly felt like she was on the witness stand. “I never did figure you for one.” Then he shot her that confident smile again and began backing up. “I'll bring you back down, if you want, but it's going to be a few weeks.”

“You really don't have to do that, but I appreciate it.” A few weeks was a long time to be carless, but as long as she didn't have to leave the rez, she could ride her paint, Scout.

He shot her a snarky look out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, that'll give you the chance to do some more research. Where to?”

Would a date be such a bad thing? Two consenting adults having dinner and maybe another kiss? She had one left—and heaven help her, she hoped it was a good one. She scrambled to think of a place where Dan would be comfortable, but she was coming up blank. She'd hardly been able to afford fine dining when she'd gone to school here, and that had been almost seven years ago.

“Doesn't have to be anywhere fancy,” Dan said, doing a pretty good job of interpreting her silence. “Anyplace with steak is fine by me.”

She remembered Tanner had mentioned Bob's Roadhouse—he and Tom Yellow Bird used to hang out there back in the day. It must have been good—they'd gone back several times. “I know a place that's supposed to be good. Take a left here and head for the highway. And actually, I think I found everything I needed this time.”

“Yeah? Digging up dirt on Cecil?”

“Nope.” He didn't see this coming? She couldn't help but enjoy springing this on him. “You.”

The truck lurched to a stop at an intersection. Even better than the wobbly chair, she decided. “Me?”

“You. This was the first chance I've had.” The question was, would he own up to any of the stuff she'd found? Or was it all part of that undefined gray area? “You've got quite a public record, you know.”

He sighed in resignation, slouching against his window. “You found the poster, didn't you?”

“This poster?” She slid the grainy grayscale poster out of the folder. The crummy printer had made it all but impossible to see what had been as plain as day on the computer screen—a young boy with a head full of blondish curls smiling up at an oil derrick. “You were literally the face of Armstrong Oil?”

“Cut me some slack. I was seven, and Dad bought me
ice cream for smiling.” His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “Mint chocolate chip, if I remember correctly. That damn poster floated around for almost ten years. I think every girl I went to high school with had a copy in her locker.” He glanced over at her, the embarrassment making him look even more like the little boy in the picture. “
Not
worth the ice cream.”

“
Cute
wasn't what you were going for in high school?”

He was in serious danger of pouting. But instead of looking childish, it illustrated what
cute
would look like on the man. “I hated it. That's why I did all the un-cute stuff.”

“I'll give you
un-cute
for being on the honor roll for four years, but the rodeo team?” She clucked at him. Rodeo might not be cute, but she had a feeling that hadn't mattered to high-school girls. “No football?”

“Mom wouldn't let me play football. She was too worried about me getting hurt.”

“Rodeo was safer than football? Now I've heard everything.” The stats from the county fairs had been quite impressive. Dan made the time on broncos, won the steer wrestling and was unbeatable in calf roping. At least he'd earned that buckle the hard way. “Why didn't you go pro?”

“I said it was safer. Not safe. Mom rode barrels,” he added by way of explanation. “Besides, didn't you ever do something a little wild, a little crazy?” His head swiveled to look her full in the eye.

“Does this count?” she asked, gesturing to the truck.

“Not yet, it doesn't.” Even in the dim light of a summer night, she could still see the twinkle in his eye. “Why did you come all the way down here just to dig up that stuff? I would have told you if you'd asked.”

That was the sort of statement that was easy to say after the fact. “Yeah?” She flipped to the more interesting stuff—the mug shot. “Tell me about college, then.”

“Man,” he groaned. “Remind me to avoid you in a courtroom.”

“Don't think of it as the Red Creek tribe asking about why you got arrested your sophomore year.” She scooted around in her seat and tucked one leg under the other. “I'm asking. Just me.”

“We haven't even had a date yet, and you want to know about that? That's third date stuff, at least.”

“Maybe this is a date.”

He glanced at her, a wide smile on his face. “Yeah?”

She had no right to feel so giddy about the smile he was wearing, but she couldn't help it. “
Maybe.
Now spill it. Destruction of college property? That doesn't seem like you, Dan.”

He sighed again, but it seemed heavier this time. “When you went to college, what did you do?”

Not a good sign, if he was going to start turning the tables on her this early in the “date.” “Well, I studied—”

“No, I mean, what did you
do?
Because when I went to college, I was tired of being Lewis Armstrong's boy, tired of eating steak, tired of being the poster boy for an oil company.” He shook his head at the memory. “I missed my dad, but I didn't want to have to live up to him anymore.”

Suddenly, this seemed like it was about a lot more than a drunken prank. “Like how?”

“You've heard of the metaphorical preacher's daughter?”

“Sure. The more religious the preacher, the more rebellious the daughter.”

“I'm the son of a cattle-raising, oil-drilling, shotgun-owning, good old boy.”

So that's why his hair had been past his shoulders and he'd been wearing those round glasses like John Lennon always wore. “You were a hippie?”

She liked him embarrassed—it was both cute and a little
bit sexy at the same time. “I tried. Did you know vegetarians don't eat
any
steak?”

“Shocking,” she said in mock surprise. That explained the alternative channels. “How long did you last?”

“Almost two years at school, but the moment I came home, I was dying for a good hamburger.” He chuckled at the memory. “I tried it all out. Smoked a little weed, burned a little incense, carried a few protest signs.”

Normal hippies weren't known for their destructive tendencies. However…she put two and two together. “Hung out with a few ecoterrorists?”

“Proto-ecoterrorists,” he corrected. “I made friends with some people.”

“I've noticed you make friends with everyone.”

“Not everyone,” he corrected her with more force than she expected. He didn't like
someone,
that much was clear. “But most any reasonable person. That one time was the first and last time I ever did anything I truly regretted.”

Despite the deep confession going on, Rosebud couldn't help but think that he didn't regret kissing her—either time. Her giddiness level rose. “What happened?”

He rubbed his seven-o'clock shadow. “When campus security showed up, I was the one holdin' the matches in front of a burning Dumpster. Oddly enough, no one believed that I was just trying to draw attention to the amount of garbage the school produced.”

“You burned Dumpsters?” That wasn't
proto
-ecoterrorist in her book. “What did your mother do?”

“Well, first she cried, then she threatened to let the judge lock me up and throw away the key before I dragged my father's good name into the mud, then she cried some more.” He shrugged in that embarrassed way again. “If I recall correctly, there was a lot of crying.”

“I think I like your mother.”

He chuckled, like maybe he agreed with her. “Between all the cryin' and the community service—I scrubbed a lot of garbage cans—I saw the light. A man doesn't like to upset his mama, you know.”

“Not a good one, anyway.” He shot an appreciative look at her.

This whole conversation had an air of the unreal to it. Rosebud should be holding on to this info, saving it for when she needed the leverage against Dan during negotiations, but instead, they were
just
talking. “So?”

“So, I grew up and joined the family business. Some of my old friends grew up and joined ELF.”

She flipped through her notes. “The same ELF that targeted seven Armstrong Holdings derricks?”

“The very same. After the second time, when the police were still coming up empty, I started doing a little digging and all the signs pointed to my old buddies.” He shook his head. “They knew it was my company—just punishing a traitor, I guess. I busted them red-handed one night. Oil derricks are a long way from Dumpsters, but they couldn't argue with a shotgun. They chose to negotiate instead of the alternative.”

“Duly noted.” She couldn't tell if that meant he had been willing to shoot, or if he'd have just turned them in to the authorities. She shivered. Her mind flashed back to that day in the valley—she'd never been sure if he'd had a gun on him or not. The
what-if
loomed
huge
in her mind. “So what was the truce? Take this exit, by the way.”

He was silent as he took the exit that led to Bob's Roadhouse Bar and Grill. A bright red neon T-bone blinked above the sign advertising Rapid City Rollers Live Tonite. A line of motorcycles took up half the parking lot in front of a long, low building that looked like it was slouching to the left; a line of trucks filled the other half. Two people she hoped were only kissing backed up against a pickup truck, and another
group was standing in a circle. Were they cheering? A flash of movement caught her eye, and she realized that a fight was going on in the middle. She shuddered.