Cowboy from the Future (27 page)

“The
best.”  Jacobi said simply.  “You were a father to me and you were
the best
,
Cade.  I know I’m a screw up, but I’d have turned out way worse without you to
guide me.”

Cade
was touched by that.  “You’re not a screw up.  You just haven’t found your
moment, yet.”

“I’m
a screw up.”  Jacobi repeated firmly.  “But, I’m trying to fix it.  I swear.” 
He nodded.  “You’ve looked out for me since I was a kid and, right now, I’m
looking after you.”

“You
are, huh?”  Cade started walking down the street, leading the horse.  “Well, I appreciate
that, Jake.  But I know what I’m doing.”

No,
he didn’t.

“No,
you don’t.”  Jake tagged along after him.  “You’re always telling me that
you’re programed to protect the people you love.  Well, Addy needs you. 
Pregnant or not, she’s
yours.
  If you let her go, you’re not acting like
the man who raised me.”

Cade
let out a long breath.  “I can’t keep her here.  I don’t even have a house for
her to live in.  She isn’t meant for this kind of life.”  He began counting off
reasons it was hopeless.  “She complains about the weather, when it isn’t even
cold.  Her skin is smooth as silkca.  She can’t start a fire.  She can barely
ride a horse.  I had to stop her from eating yankt berries.  Twice.  She’s
helpless, Jake.  If she stays here, she’ll be in danger
every day
.”

“But,
she’s smart, Cade.  She can change.  Addy can learn how to survive here.”

“I
don’t want her to change.  I love Adeline just as she is.  The woman is like
sunlight.  You can’t change sunlight.  You just bask in it.”  He shook his
head.  “A world this dark will grind her up.”

“Fine. 
If she can’t stay, then you need to go.”  Jake decided.  “You need to travel
into the past
with
her, Cade.”

Since
Jacobi didn’t lower his voice when he made that announcement, several passersby
shot them strange looks.  Time travel sounded insane when you hadn’t
experienced it firsthand.

“Go
back to Addy’s time?”  Cade stopped walking, his mind whirling.  Returning
with
her hadn’t occurred to him.  It was ridiculous.  Impossible.  …But his heart
began to pound with hope.  “How?”

“I
don’t know.  I guess you’ll need to figure it out.”

Could
he do that?  Would it really work?  Cade tried to be logical.  “If I traveled
back there, I would have to start all over.”

“Like
that’s a bad thing?  Everybody here wants you dead, dickhead.”  Jake waved his
hand around Big Rock.  The entire place was filled with felons and Cade was one
of them.

He
had to admit, there was nothing about this world that he’d miss.  “I don’t know
anything about her time.  I’d be lost there.”

“Addy
would teach you.  You saw her in that cave with the moving pictures.  She
wanted
you to understand her world.  To like it.”  Jacobi paused.  “Besides, you
couldn’t be lost if you were with her.  She’s where you belong.”

Cade
frowned, because that was true.  All of it.  Traveling back to Addy’s time
solved so many of his problems.  Except… “She hasn’t asked me to go with her. 
Addy might not
want
me.  Not really.  She’s very mad.”

“Sure
she wants you.  Pissed or not, she slept with you, right?  Addy wouldn’t have
sex with a guy unless she really wanted him.  It’s why she stayed a virgin so
long, when
nobody
stays a virgin so long.”

Cade
couldn’t argue with that, either.  Addy might call herself a scatterbrain, but
the woman was really just uncompromising.  To Adeline, sex meant something…
pure.  That didn’t mean she was thinking about forever, but it probably meant she
was
thinking about
thinking about forever.  Even a chance of having Addy
forever was worth any…

“It’s
why I steer clear of ladies.”  Jake continued chattily, cutting off Cade’s
silent contemplations.  “Too much trouble to deal with a girl like Addy.  It’s
so
much easier just to pay for one, ya know?”

Cade
slanted his brother a dark look.

“What? 
It was a
compliment
.”

“Stop
talking.”

Jacobi
rolled her eyes.  “You take everything the wrong way.  I love Addy.  You
know
I love Addy.  She’s funny and nice and weird in all the best way.  All I’m
saying is,
personally
I would rather sleep with a woman who takes her
clothes off for money.”

“Just
stop talking.”

He
kept talking.  “I think it’s cute that Addy
doesn’t
take her clothes off
for money, though.”  Jacobi paused.  “Even though she could get a hell of
alotta money for taking her clothes off, because she’s
super
hot.  Best
body I ever saw.  No doubt.”  He gave an expansive shrug, like all of that was
completely reasonable.  “How is that not a compliment?”

It
truly was a wonder the kid had survived to adulthood, given his lack of a
functioning brain.  “
Stop talking, Jake
.”

He
subsided with a pout.  “Fine.  Be a dick.  Addy would get what I was saying. 
She
always
gets me, even when no one
else
does.”

Cade
rolled his eyes.  First Deke was buying new clothes and now Jake was sure that
only Addy understood his rambling.  His brothers were smitten with her and, at
the moment, Adeline liked them more than she liked Cade.  He might as well just
leave the three of them alone to bitch about him in peace.

It
was galling.

…Well,
a
little
galling.  If he was honest, Cade was thrilled that she cared
about his siblings and vise versa.  Addy was right to scoff at the idea that
Voltyn didn’t feel love.  All his life, he’d been looking after Jake and Deke. 
He loved them with all his heart and Addy fit right into their family.  It was
like they’d been waiting for her.

They
had
been waiting for her.

“If
I
do
go back to her time, you and Deke are coming with me.”  Cade warned
Jake.  “At the moment, I have no idea why I’d care about never seeing you
again, but I know I’d
eventually
miss your jabbering.”

“Hell
yeah, I’m going.  Did you see Addy’s world?  They got metal wagons without
horses attached and shit that can make people fly!”  Jacobi beamed.  “I wanna
see
all
of it.  Deke’s gonna be a harder sell, though.  He says he won’t
go back into the Wilderness.”

Cade
grunted.  Deke still had too many nightmares about what he’d seen in the west. 
Cade had no idea how to get him farther than Big Rock.

“We
should get Addy to convince him.”  Jake suggested.  “Deke listens to her.”

Adeline
could talk the Westins into anything, so that might work.  “The real problem is
Addy.  How am I going to persuade her that she
wants
us to come along?”

Jake
pondered that with an intensity he usually saved for a winning hand of cards. 
“Romance?”

Gods,
Cade would never escape that word.  “How many times must I explain that Voltyn
can’t be romantic?  There is no…”

He
stopped short, his eyes falling on another Voltyn.  The man walked passed on
the sidewalk, his eyes downcast and beaten.  He was no different than Cade,
except he believed all the lies and hatred.  There was no freedom for him in
Big Rock or anywhere else.  He didn’t think he could change his grim existence,
because no curvy little redhead had ever shown up to save him.

Cade
watched the guy for a long moment and felt something shift in his
consciousness.  All his life, humans had told Cade what Voltyn couldn’t do, and
couldn’t feel, and couldn’t be.

…And
it was all total bullshit.

Bigoted
lies weren’t going to stand between Cade and the one person he wanted.  Addy
liked
the fact that he was a Voltyn.  Cade would never forget the look on her face
when they’d made love.  The glow of his skin hadn’t scared her.  On the
contrary, she’d moved onto his lap, her eyes bright and full of trust.  No
hesitation.  No fear.  She accepted him just the way he was and that gave him
strength.

As
long as he had Addy, Cade could do anything.

Even
romance.

An
insane plan formed in his mind.  It was crazy, but he was going to do it
anyway.  The gods had given him a miracle and he wasn’t letting her go.  Desperation
was apparently the mother of invention.  Well, desperation and thievery.  It
was a potent combination.  Cade wasn’t above stealing courtship ideas from more
successful men.  Not if it meant keeping Addy and the life they were supposed
to have together.

Maybe
Cade didn’t know how to be romantic…  But Patrick Swayze did.

During the
Cretaceous Period, a vast inland sea cut North America in two parts and covered
the middle of the continent in water.  It stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to
the Arctic Ocean and from the Appalachians to the Rocky Mountains.

Look
around you, traveler!  This environment still bares the evidence of that great ocean. 
Fossils of fish can be found on mountain tops.  Sandstone rocks, formed under
the sea, still dot the horizon.  We are part of a continuing chain of existence
that stretches for eons, before and after us.

This
eternal landscape has been the home of more creatures than we can imagine and,
each day, it continues to nurture new life.

Brown’s
Glampling Tours Official Pocket Guide

“This
is ridiculous.”  Addy rolled her eyes as Deke hustled her into the Big Rock
Gambling Hall.  “What are we even doing here?  We’re supposed to be buying more
supplies for the trip to Yellowstone.”

“We’re
out of money, remember?”

“Well,
we’re not going to win more in this place.”  She glanced around the seedy
interior.  “I don’t even know how to play these games and I’m
sure
they’re rigged.”

The
casino looked like someone had taken the worst dive in Vegas, tossed it into a
blender with the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney World, and then run over
unholy concoction with a garbage truck.  Half-filled with marginal people, the
whole place reeked of alcohol and despair.

“What
are you talking about?”  Deke frowned, somewhere between insulted and
confused.  “This is the nicest place in Big Rock.”

Addy
didn’t want to hurt his feelings by laughing.  “Right.  Well, I still think
we’d do better raising money another way.  Are you sure we don’t have anything left
to sell?”

“Just
Cade’s tools.”

“Lord,
why did we even bring those from the saloon?  They should be destroyed for the
good of the world.”  Addy shook her head.  “Well, we could trade my iPhone or
the state-of-the-art bear whistle.”  She paused and went back to her original
idea.  “
Or
we could rob a bank.”

Deke
sat down at one of the dirty tables, glancing around like he was waiting for
someone.  She’d talked him into buying a new flannel shirt and some
kind-of-normal pants, so he looked a lot better.  Addy was a big
Come on
Eileen
fan, but the bare chested overall look was just a huge styling
“don’t,” she didn’t care what the rest of Big Rock seemed to think.

“We’re
not robbing a bank.”  Deke repeated in a long suffering tone.  For all his
surliness, Deke was firmly committed to remaining more Roy Rogers and less Billy
the Kid.  Talking him into a life of crime was proving difficult.  “You’ll have
plenty of supplies for your trip west, because I’m not going.”

Addy
didn’t accept that.  She wanted all three members of her makeshift family with
her, so she could keep an eye on them.  “You have to come.”  She informed him
simply.

“I’m
not
going back into the Wilderness.  Not even for you.”

Addy
snorted.  They’d just see about that.  “Anyway, I think we can pull off an
amazing heist.”  She continued.  “I’ve seen
Point Break
--like-- twenty-six
times, so I have all these great ideas.  It’s Patrick Swayze’s third best
performance, after
Dirty Dancing
and
Roadhouse
.”  She paused. 
“And maybe
Red Dawn
.”

Deke
ignored that film critique.  “We’re not robbing a bank.”

“Why
not?  It’s the Wild West and we’re outlaws.  I’m telling you, hold-ups are practically
our mission statement.  You’ll be sorry if you let this opportunity slip away.”

“We’re
not robbing a bank, Addy.”

Westins
were a stubborn breed.  She tried a compromise.  “A train, then.  We can wear
handkerchiefs as masks and blow the safe with dynamite and be very Dalton
Gang.”  She hesitated.  “Did the Dalton Gang rob trains?”

Deke
arched a bored brow.  “What’s a train?”

“Lord,
you’re impossible.”  She flopped down in the seat across from him.  The wooden
chair looked like it had been set on fire, but it was still sturdier than any
of the furniture Cade had built back at their saloon.  Not that she was even
thinking
about the jerk she’d accidently fallen in love with.  “Where’s Jake?  He’d get
my idea.”

“He
probably would, since you two share a maturity level.  He’s with Cade, though. 
We’re supposed to meet them here.”

That
news had Addy leaping to her feet, just as fast as she sat down.  “I don’t want
to meet Cade anywhere!  I told you, I’m never speaking to him, again.”

“He’s
an ass.”  Deke soothed.  “A big one.  You’re right to be pissed.  But just give
him a chance to fix things.”

“He
doesn’t even know they’re broken!  I guarantee you, that idiot has no idea why
I’m mad at him.”  She tossed her hair back, riding high on indignation.  “So
fine.
 
I’m over it.  That asshole doesn’t want to ask me to stay?  I’ll just go home
to my nice condo and he can languish here in
Unforgiven
, remembering me
and the beautiful time we shared…”

Deke
cut off her rant, before she got to the really good part.  “What if you’re
pregnant?”

Addy
stopped short.  “Pregnant?”  She echoed blankly.

“Yep. 
Sometimes that happens when you ‘share’ a beautiful time with an asshole.”

Uh-oh.

She’d
never had to worry about being pregnant before, so Addy hadn’t been worrying
about it now.  Truthfully, it hadn’t even occurred to her.  Except now those
feeling she sometimes got redlined into the strongest certainty she’d ever
experienced.

She
was pregnant.

Addy
sank back down in her seat.  “…well shit.”

Deke
gestured for the bartender to bring them some drinks, taking in her pallor. 
“Don’t panic.  If it happens, Cade will stand by you.  You know that.  Hell,
just hint at the possibility and he’ll probably beg you not to leave.”

“That’s
not the point.”  Addy tried to think through her shock.  “I want him to ask me
because he loves me, not because of a baby.”

“What
are you talking about?”  Deke scoffed.  “Of
course
he loves you.”

“I
know he loves me, but he hasn’t
said
it!”

“Why
does he have to say it?  It’s fucking
obvious
.”

“God,
men are stupid.”  A guy with orange hair and a feline beard straight out of the
Broadway production of
Cats
brought over two glasses of mysterious
liquor.  Addy gratefully grabbed one, with only a passing thought to the
cleanliness of the tankard.  “Cade has to say it, because I want to hear it,
alright?”

“Did
you tell him that?”

“
Telling
him defeats the whole purpose.  He’s supposed to say it spontaneously.”

“How’s
he supposed to
know
to say it spontaneously, if you don’t tell him?”

“Jesus,
why do I even bother talking to Westins?  It’s like debating with three brick
walls.”  Addy brought the drink to her lips and then froze.  She wasn’t
sure
how she felt about being pregnant, but she was beginning to suspect she
liked the idea and she wasn’t taking any chances.  “Do you think this drink might
be dangerous to maybe-babies?”

“Hell,
I think it’s dangerous to everyone.”  Deke took an unconcerned swallow. 
“Anyway, alls I’m saying is, Cade and you belong together.”

“Tell
him
that.”  Addy grumbled, wondering if this town sold pregnancy tests. 
Hell, did she even
need
one?  She was feeling really, really sure about
this.

“I
will tell him.”  Deke assured her.  “I
have
told him.  If you would
just…”

The
off-kilter clang of not!piano interrupted his relentless matchmaking.  Addy
glanced towards the small stage, squinting in confusion when she saw Jake
sitting on the odd-shaped bench.  He gave her a wave and then went back to
testing the keys, trying to figure out the notes on the unfamiliar instrument.

“About
fucking time.”  Deke muttered.

Addy
frowned.  “What in the world is he…?”

“We’re
ready for the big dance number.”  Cade announced from behind her.

Addy
whirled around in surprise, an annoying burst of pleasure blooming at the sight
of him.  “What?”  She hadn’t heard him approach and now he was looming over her,
looking beautiful and determined.  It took her a second to catch up with what
he’d said.  “Hang on, did you just kind of ask me to
dance?
”

“Kind
of.”

Her
eyes narrowed, refusing to smile at that answer.  The father of her maybe-baby
really was a flirt.  “Why?”

He
held out a hand.  “Because, I seem to recall you mentioning that you’d been
waiting a long time for your epic romance.”

“Is
that what this is?  Epic romance?  I expected more rose petals and less mold
growing on the walls.”  In case he’d missed it, she gestured around the casino. 
A garden of unknown spores blossomed on a stylish mural of naked women
cavorting with snakes.

“Whatever
rose petals are, I promise to get you some after we dance.”

Despite
Addy’s best efforts, her mouth curved.  “Ask me for real and I’ll say yes.”

Cade
didn’t hesitate.  “Will you dance with me, Adeline?”

“Yes.” 
She took hold of her palm and let him draw her to her feet.

Jacobi
had figured out the not!piano and started pounding out one of the two songs he (barely)
knew:
Time After Time
by the Cyndi Lauper.  He was missing every third
note, but it sounded pretty darned good to her.  He’d clearly had an
exceptional teacher.

Addy
stepped into Cade’s arms, her hand coming up to his wide shoulder.  “How did
you convince your brothers to help you with this
and
keep straight
faces?”

“Threats.”

She
didn’t doubt it.  “If I’d said ‘no,’ were they instructed to carry me to the
dance floor over their heads?”

“No. 
We were going with a lasso.”

Addy
didn’t doubt that either.  “You’re just lucky the answer it
always
‘yes’
when you ask, cowboy.  Even when I’m furious at you.”  She looked around.  “And
this
is
a little bit romantic, I guess.  …If I ignore the drunken
gamblers staring at us and God awful smells of this place.”

If
the patrons of Big Rock Gambling Hall disapproved of a Voltyn dancing with a
human, none of them were sober enough to verbally complain.  Or maybe they were
just smart enough to notice that Deke had set his gun on the table, just in
case anyone caused any trouble.  Either way, it was a real step up from the open
bigotry in Shadow-of-the-Gods.

Addy
smiled.  Maybe she and Cade could just stay here and make a life for
themselves.  They could open a saloon or even a casino.  There was
clearly
room in the market for a nicer gambling establishment, if this was the best
place in town.  They could buy someplace with a big yard for the maybe-baby.  Jake
could play the not!piano for the guests.  Deke could be the bouncer and intimidate
people.  Cade could do the business-y part and Addy could do their marketing. 
It could really work.

Cade’s
palm settled on her waist, unaware that she was already thinking of color
schemes.  “I know you’re mad at me, but I’m sorry for whatever it is I did,
Addy.  I swear to you, I didn’t intend to do it.  I didn’t even
know
I
did it.  That last thing I want is you angry.  I want you to forgive me.”

“I’m
considering it.”  She shot him a quick look, gauging his reaction.  “Has it
occurred to you that I might be pregnant?”

“Yes.” 
For such a big man, he moved so smoothly.  Voltyn reflexes really were a gift. 
Cade guiding her around the makeshift dance floor like he’d trained at
Kellermans’ itself.  Even Johnny Castle and Baby would’ve been wowed.

“Yes?” 
She repeated, refusing to be impressed.  “That’s all you have to say about the
possibility of becoming a father?”

He
thought for a beat.  “Well… I would like a girl.”

Addy
didn’t know why, but that casual response had her relaxing.  Damn if Cade
didn’t look pleased with the idea of Addy Junior entering the world.  “You’re
such
an asshole.”  She laid her head on his shoulder and let out a contented sigh.

“Oh
alright, we’ll have a boy.  Gods help you if he turns out like my brothers,
though.”  He rested his cheek on the top of her hair.  “Now would be a good
time to tell me that you sort of love me.”  He murmured.

“I’ve
already told you that I sort of love you.”

“So
what’s the harm in telling me again?  Unless you’ve changed your mind.”  Cade
maneuvered her into a very modern-style twirl.