A Real Cowboy Knows How to Kiss (21 page)

He had to leave, and he had to leave now.

The front door of the house was open, and he could hear voices from the living room. He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. "Chase? You around?"

"In here." His brother's voice echoed out from the living room.

Steen stepped into the ranch house with its glistening wood floors. He remembered the first time he'd been invited inside for grub, back when the ranch had been owned by Old Skip, who seemed to have made it his mission to give the Stockton boys a place to work. He was the one who'd taught Steen about horses, the one who'd shown Steen exactly how special his gift with them was. Back then, the ranch house had been falling down and worn out, but Chase had fixed it up. It looked good, good enough even for a woman like Erin.

Not that it was his house to offer her. It was Chase's.

Steen stopped in the doorway. Chase was sitting on the edge of the couch, with Mira perched next to him. They were both leaning forward, watching the television. Mira was leaning against Chase, and his hand was on her belly, as if he were staking ownership of the baby she carried. It was a scene of domesticity, one that Steen was pretty sure he'd never seen up close before.

For a moment, he imagined it was Erin sitting there, and he was parked next to her. What would that be like, to have a forever with someone? To have a kid on the way? He waited for the roil of bile in his stomach at the idea…but there wasn't any. Not even fear. He just felt…lost.

Shit. He had no room for this.

He cleared his throat and pulled his shoulders back. "You got a sec?"

Chase looked over his shoulder at him, and grinned. "Come on in. We're watching some horse racing. Mira used to watch it with her family, and she wanted to see it."

Mira looked over at him and smiled, patting the couch beside her. "Come on in, Steen."

He pulled his cowboy hat a little further down over his forehead, incredibly uncomfortable with intruding upon them and their domestic scene. "Nah, I'm good. I just wanted to tell you guys I'm leaving."

Chase's eyes narrowed, and he turned to give Steen his full attention. "Leaving where?"

"The ranch. I'm hitting the road. Gotta go somewhere."

Mira and Chase exchanged glances, then Chase stood up and strode over toward him. "Come with me. Let's talk."

Steen's jaw clenched, and he didn't move. He didn't want to get into it with his brother. "Nah, I'm good. Just wanted to say thanks for the hospitality."

Chase halted in front of him and folded his arms across his chest. "Where are you going to go?" he demanded.

"I don't know." Steen shrugged. "I'll find something."

"Working at a gas station again?" There was a challenge in Chase's voice that made Steen stiffen.

"I'll do what I have to do," he said evenly. "I'm not going to live off your charity."

Chase swore under his breath. "Come on, Steen, you think this is charity?" He gestured toward the barn. "I need your help. I have horses in there that are so messed up that I can't help them. I've tried, and they're in just as bad a shape as when they arrived. I have two more coming in tomorrow. I spread the word that you're back, and the owners are sending their animals. These are horses that no one can help, bro. No one but you."

Steen ground his jaw, tension settling in his muscles. He'd seen horses like that before, with their wild, terrified eyes, and panicked breathing. Once he made eye contact with one of them, nothing else mattered except taking away the animal's fear and giving it the chance to reclaim its life. He shifted uncomfortably. He hadn't expected to be faced with troubled horses ever again, and he didn't have his defenses ready. "I never said I was staying."

"No, you didn't, but you want to, and I need your help. I can't run this whole damned place by myself. I'm mortgaged until I'm bleeding debt, and I have thousands of acres of unused land. I bought this place for all of us, including you."

Steen looked away, staring out the window at the vast fields. "You have seven other brothers to help you," he said quietly. "Brothers that you grew up with. You have a bond with them, not me. I came late to the party."

"Shit, Steen, really? What about the fact we all sat around your bed when you were dying in the hospital? Didn't that mean anything to you? We're all a bunch of anti-social bastards with no loyalty to anyone, except our own, and we were there for you. Not just me. Travis, Zane, Ryder, Maddox, and Quintin. Caleb wasn't there because his phone's been disconnected and we can't reach him. Logan showed up the next day, getting there as soon as he could. You got us all, Steen. When are you going to realize it?"

Steen ran his hand through his hair. A part of him wanted to believe Chase, to buy into this brotherhood crap, but he couldn't do it. He'd been down that road too many damn times, counting on people who blew him off. "I appreciate you guys were there. I do, but hell, man, I don't belong."

Chase met his gaze. "You could belong, if you got over your shit and just let us in."

Steen stared at his half-brother, the only one of his brothers who he'd listed as an approved visitor when he'd been in prison. Suddenly, he didn't see Chase as the successful rancher. He saw the teenager who walked out onto the front porch on his third night after his mom had left. Chase had been wearing a white cowboy hat, just like now, and he'd been holding a brown one in his hand. It had been battered and worn, stinking of horse crap and sweat, and Chase had held it out to him. He'd said only one word. "Welcome." And then he'd handed Steen the hat and walked off.

Welcome.

It was the same hat that he was wearing now. Only one he'd ever worn. Only one he'd ever had. He looked at Chase, really looked at him for the first time. He'd never thought of him as a brother, not really. But he was, on some level. Maybe, just maybe—

He suddenly heard Erin's voice, and he spun around, his heart leaping. "Erin?" She wasn't behind him. He heard her talking, and he turned again, searching until he saw her face on the television. He vaulted over the back of the couch and landed beside Mira, leaning forward. Erin was wearing a tee shirt, and her hair was up in a ponytail, just as it had been so many times when she'd been out in Wyoming. She looked the same, exactly the same, and something inside him seemed to skip a beat.

She was smiling, a huge smile that lit up her whole face as she talked. "She looks good, doesn't she?" he said aloud, to no one in particular.

He was vaguely aware of Chase and Mira talking, and he waved at them to be quiet, leaning forward to hear Erin talk. He couldn't believe she was on television. He listened, riveted, as the reporter interviewed her about some surgery she'd done on the Kentucky Derby winner. Pride tightened in his chest. "Yeah," he whispered. "I knew you'd do something big." Maybe she wasn't the CEO of a major company, but this was better. This was her. This was why he didn't belong with her. What if those reporters got a hold of his past? There was no way on this earth that he'd taint her, but shit, seeing her face again, looking into her brown eyes, hearing her voice…it was too much to resist. He knew he would be lost for her forever.

This was his moment. His last hurrah with her. His everything. She was so beyond him, out of his reach, but her heart and her soul would always be a part of him.

A man moved into the camera to stand beside her. Steen narrowed his eyes when the man put his arm around Erin's shoulder, and he didn't miss her sudden tension. The man was in an expensive suit, and he looked rich as hell. The reporter asked him a question, and he started talking in some medical jargon about something, but Steen couldn't take his gaze off the man's fingers and the way they were digging possessively into Erin's shoulder.

She didn't move away from him.

And then, a banner flashed across the bottom of the screen. Doctor Louis Armstrong.

Louis.

Louis.

Her ex-husband, with his arm locked possessively around her shoulder.

Jesus.

Steen felt like his world was falling out from under him. She was back with her ex? With her
husband
? Suddenly, memories of the night with Rachel in the hotel room came flooding back. He recalled Rachel's sworn declarations that she'd never stopped loving him, his shock when a man had stumbled into the bedroom claiming to be her husband, and his numb horror when he'd watched the man fall to the ground, landing on his own knife. And he'd never forget what Rachel had said when the police arrived, pointing her finger at him and saying,
"He tried to kill my husband."

And there Erin was, smiling into the camera, with her ex-husband's arm around her shoulder. Jesus, he knew he hadn't been good enough for her. He
knew
that, but son of a bitch, he hadn't ever thought she'd lied to him. He stumbled to his feet. "I gotta go." He had to leave. Get away. For a split second, he'd almost been convinced that he should stay, that he belonged, and it had all been a fucking mirage.

"Hey!" Chase grabbed his shoulder and Steen swung around to face him, fury boiling up inside him.

"How do you do it?" Steen snapped. "How do you sit there with Mira and pretend you know how to be family? How can you lie to her and yourself that you know anything about being a father? How can you sit on that damn couch and think you're worthy?" He snarled the words, so pissed off that Chase had the balls to pretend to be good enough. "You're just another one of old man Stockton's bastards, just like the rest of us. What makes you think you deserve that shit?"

Chase's face grew hard. "It took me a long time to think I deserved it," he said quietly, as Mira came to stand beside him, sliding her hand into Chase's callused one. "Yeah, our father was a worthless bastard who drank and beat the hell out of every one of us. Yeah, we have no idea how to be a family, but I don't care." Chase raised his and Mira's clasped hands. "All I know is that Mira believes in me, and that's enough motivation for me to do whatever I have to do to make it happen."

"You're not worthless," Mira said softly. "None of you are."

Steen looked at her, still feeling sick to his stomach. "Did you even see Erin on television? Did you see her with her husband?
Did you see her?
"

Mira looked him right in the eyes. "What I just saw was a woman who was completely uncomfortable and wanted nothing more than to get away from the man who had his arm around her. That's what I saw."

He stared at her, bracing against the sudden surge of hope in his chest. He wasn't a fool. He'd believed before. "She didn't try to get away from him."

"Did you look into her eyes?" Mira challenged.

Steen glanced back at the television screen, but the interview was over. They were showing golf now. Golf. He closed his eyes. "I can't do this again," he muttered. "I won't."

He turned away and walked out the door.

This time, his brother didn't try to stop him. Neither did Mira. They just let him go.

He didn't look back as he walked down the steps, grabbed his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and walked down the driveway.

Steen had already hiked a good mile when he heard the roar of a truck behind him, coming from the direction of the ranch house. He ground his jaw and didn't turn his head when the pickup slowed down.

"Keep the cell phone so I don't have to keep tracking you down whenever you get a phone call. Stop hiding and talk." Chase tossed the cell phone Steen had left behind at him, without even stopping.

Steen caught the phone instinctively, inhaling dirt as Chase sped up and drove away, leaving him swallowing dust.

For a long moment, he didn't even look at the phone. It had to be Erin. Who else would be calling him? He didn't know what to say. He couldn't listen to her voice and wonder how much of it had been lies, and wonder how much of a fool he'd been.

Slowly, he raised the phone to his ear. "Yeah?"

"Steen?"

It was a man's voice, one he didn't recognize. "Yeah?"

"Thomas Smith here. I took the liberty of calling this number, since this is the one you called my wife on. We didn't have any other way of contacting you. I hope that was all right."

"Thomas Smith?" The cultured voice became clearer, and he remembered Pointer's father. He stood taller. "Yes, sir, that was fine."

"You left a message with my wife. I've been working on it. Got some info for you."

Steen tightened his grip on the phone. "You mean about my mother?" A part of him wanted to hang up the phone right then. He didn't want to know. He really didn't. He'd had enough truth to last him.

"Alice Marie Rivers was a stripper and exotic dancer for ten years. A prostitute by some accounts, though details are sketchy."

Steen gritted his teeth and walked over to the nearby fence. He leaned on the wood, staring out across the dusty plains that now belonged in the Stockton family. "Yes, she was." He'd never forget the hours he'd spent sitting in one dingy motel room after another, waiting for his mother to come back with a bruise she hadn't had before. At the time, he'd been too young to understand exactly what had been going on, but he'd known it was bad, and he'd sworn every night that he'd find a way to provide for them so she didn't have to do it anymore.

He hadn't come through in time, and she'd bailed on him.

"She had one son, Steen Rivers Stockton."

He braced his palms on the fence and bowed his head, listening. "Yeah, that's her." He suddenly didn't want to hear about her life history. He knew about her life. He knew she'd had it shitty, being saddled with a kid. "Where is she now?" His fingers dug into the fence as he waited. Had she gone on to some better life? Found a rich guy who didn't want her bastard kid? Or had she met a grisly death at the hands of some john because he hadn't pulled his shit together in time to get her out of that life? "Tell me."

"She's dead, son."

Steen bowed his head against the sudden wave of grief. His eyes burned. What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn't seen her since he was a kid. That was too long to grieve the mother who'd abandoned him? "How? When?" His voice was thick and raspy, his words forcing themselves out on their own, asking questions he didn't want the answers to.