Nothing Sweeter (Sweet on a Cowboy) (21 page)

Not her fault?
The booze fog thinned, exposing the stark truth. Molten outrage flowed from his brain to pool in his chest, then coursed through the rest of his body, scorching everything it touched. “You knew. All this time—”

Wyatt looked down the delicate nose he’d inherited from his mother. “Do you think I was going to let you go into business, much less fall in love, with someone who obviously had something to hide?”

“You arrogant little sonofa—” Max took a swing. Wyatt jerked back, and his fist whizzed past his brother’s chin. The traitorous bar stool swiveled and the momentum spun him off, to land on his hands and knees on the sticky floor. His head whirled, his stomach lurched.

Wyatt looked down on him. “You can walk back to the hotel. Hopefully the cold air will bring you some clarity.” He
tsk
ed in disgust. “I’m going to call Juan and book a flight home. I’ve had all the ignorant I can stand.”

27

B
ree paced the floor in front of the window in her hotel room. The Heather truck hadn’t been in the parking lot when the cab dropped her off. She glanced to the clock on the nightstand. Two hours ago.

Not that she knew what would happen when they did return. She took an angry swipe at escapee tendrils of ponytail crawling at her neck. She’d changed into jeans as soon the door closed, and the silk dress lay in a heap on the closet floor. She didn’t need a reminder of this evening hanging in her face.

Chewing her lip, she took the four steps to the opposite wall. While traversing miles of carpet, she’d dug to the bottom of the sludge pit of guilt she’d covered up with busy the past months.

At OCT, I ignored Vic’s illegal activities, because whistle-blowing would have disrupted my comfortable life.
She winced, paced four more steps, and turned.
When I got out of Club Fed, I ran—to make the same mistake again.

Telling the brothers her past, up front, would have
been the right thing to do. The moral thing. Instead, she ignored the elephant, hoping it would go away. How could she not have seen that she was sabotaging her new life?

The answer popped into her mind, as if her subconscious had been waiting for the question. “Home.”

Her elusive dream of childhood. She’d watched her classmates, families screaming in the stands at high school sports and parents gathering around them at graduation. The father-daughter dinner she didn’t attend her senior year. Mom had done her best, but had been so busy keeping food on the table there wasn’t time for much else. Bree had always longed for the closeness, the sense of belonging others took for granted.

Apparently wanted it bad enough to give up my self-respect.

She straightened her spine. The first time, the government took her freedom before she could make it right. This time, she had a choice. An odd coal of pride glowed in her chest, spreading a balm of heat to her frozen extremities.

Grabbing the jean jacket from the bed, she slipped her arm in the sleeve.
I’ll explain everything. Then I’ll move on, if that’s what he wants. They can buy me out when they’ve got the money.
Jacket half on, she hesitated.

What about her love? Max could hardly pay equity on her broken heart. The motel bed squeaked as she plopped onto it, the coal of pride smothered by a tidal surge of loss.

The price for her first mistake had been prison. The cost this time was steeper. The fantasy life she’d made up had evaporated like the dream it was. She’d have to figure out a way to survive on what remained. Somehow.

Snippets from life on the Heather flashed in her mind: cooking dinner in a warm kitchen with Tia, brushing the
cow ponies in the cold hours before dawn, watching the PBR with the men, them teasing her for rooting for the bulls. She massaged her burning stomach. Max in the field beside the road that day, the look in his eyes telling her she was home and he was glad of it.

That was gone now. The lethargy of hopelessness pulled at her. All she wanted was to crawl under the covers and escape in sleep for the next forty-eight hours.

She shook herself.
You’ve started over before. You can do it again
. Living without Max might leave her an empty shell, but she wasn’t going out a coward.

Headlights washed across the facade of the building. Bree shot to her feet. As she reached for the door, the mirror showcased the angry scar, all the more jarring without a scarf. She tore open the top button of her blouse.
Nothing left to hide.

Pulling a deep breath, she jerked the door open and stepped into the cold night.

The Jamesons’ truck pulled into the parking space in front of her room. Raising her hand to block the headlights’ glare, she saw only one occupant. She walked to the driver’s door. “Wyatt, where the heck have you been?”

“Driving.”

“Where’s Max?” He turned off the ignition, and in the silence, she heard him sigh. He looked flat tuckered. “Where is he, Wyatt?”

He pulled the keys from the ignition. “At a bar down the road.”

“Can I have the keys?”

He eased out of the cab. “When I left him, he was in a surly mood. I doubt that an hour with a bottle of Johnnie Walker has improved his disposition.” He regarded
her with a frown. “Are you sure this shouldn’t wait until morning?”

“Nope. It’s waited too long already.” Her voice sounded strong. Good. She raised her hand to pat the side of his face. “Go to bed, Wyatt. I’ll explain everything to you in the morning. I promise.”

He pulled her into a hug. “You don’t owe me any explanation, sweetie.” He backed up, holding her upper arms. “I know who you are.”

“Thanks.” She blinked. “As it turns out, so do I.” She held her hand out for the keys. “Rest well, Wyatt. I’ll see you at the finals tomorrow.”

Too soon, a garish neon sign told her she’d found the bar. Her traitorous mind thought up excuses to keep going. Good excuses. She forced herself to hit the turn signal, then parked, got out, and slammed the door. If she slowed, she’d lose her nerve.

Max sat at the deserted bar, relaxed but not slouched. Taking that as a good sign, she stepped next to him. He glanced up. His eyes weren’t bleary. In fact they were sharp—so sharp they cut into her stomach, her resolve, her heart.

“I’m going to talk to you, Max.” Her voice sounded firmer than her legs felt. “And you are going to listen.”

He looked at the drink in his hand.

“When I’m done, you can send me away if you want. But I will have my say.” He made no acknowledgment of her presence, so she settled on the stool next to him and waved off the bartender who approached with a raised eyebrow.

She sucked in a deep breath. “It seems like another lifetime, but it started only three years ago. I was living
in LA, working as a controller for a trendy accessory importer. You know, sunglasses, iPod cases, stuff like that. I was fresh out of school, gung ho, and naive.”

She grabbed a cocktail napkin and tore tiny pieces off the edges, for something to do with her hands. “I had big dreams of moving up, of being somebody.” She shook her head. “After a year or so, I started finding discrepancies in the books. Inconsistencies that Vic, the owner, didn’t deny.”

Max ignored her, but something in the tilt of his head told her he was listening. “I had the proof. I should have told the authorities. I didn’t.” She forced the words past her clenched jaw. “I liked my designer clothes, my chic condo, my upwardly mobile friends. So I partied on, and kept my mouth shut.”

She looked down at the pile of shredded napkin, small, but growing. “A customer called about a shipment of expensive gaming boards he’d gotten by mistake. I traced it and discovered that Vic had them listed on eBay under the seller name ‘Madison Avenue Sales.’ ” She glanced at Max, who now watched her carefully. “My name is Aubrey Madison. Tanner is my deadbeat father’s name.”

She looked back to her shredding. “Anyway, Vic had it all rigged. He imported the illegal boards, but the customs papers listed a much cheaper board to avoid the high import duty. He brought them into the warehouse, opened an offshore account in Belize, set up the eBay account, then watched the money roll in. I’d stumbled upon his little gold mine.

“The next day, I resigned. I gave two weeks’ notice, not wanting Vic wondering about my motives for quitting; I didn’t trust him. Two days later, the Feds walked in and arrested me.

“I didn’t have a clue where he was hiding the money, or how he was getting it back into the country. And there wasn’t much I could do about it in jail. The Feds figured I was lying. So to put the pressure on, they chose a special cell mate for me.” She couldn’t help the shiver that coursed through her. “The girlfriend of the leader of the Mexican Mafia.

“When I refused to be a go-between in a drug deal, she sent her gang to teach me a lesson.” She touched the scar. “In the shower one night, they cut me and left me on the floor to bleed to death.”

Max reared back and unbalanced the stool. She put out a hand, but he pulled back as if her touch would burn him. Her gut twisted, but she pushed on, almost whispering. “When I got out of the prison hospital, I was convicted and sent to Soledad to serve four years for fraud.

“I’d still be there if it weren’t for Vic’s brother-in-law being a cheap SOB.” She smiled. It didn’t feel right, but she hoped it looked right. “He owned a small trucking firm, importing vegetables from Mexico and Central America. One day, after crossing the border, the driver had a flat. See, they’d packed the tires with cash. The blowout left shredded bills all over the freeway.” She chuckled. “The idiot had put cheap Mexican retreads on to save a few bucks.

“I’d have given a lot to have seen Vic’s face when they came for him. A ten-dollar retread cost him his freedom!” Her laugh sounded weird, so she made herself stop. “Oh God, that’s funny.” She rubbed her eyes. “Anyway, my conviction was overturned and I was released.

“They gave me money, a ‘victim’s stipend.’ ” She snorted. “I think the DA didn’t want a lawsuit. I didn’t want
their blood money, though. I just wanted to leave the whole sordid mess behind and start over. To do something that was clean, simple, and good.” She spread her raised hands.

“That’s the money I put up for Total Bull.”

Max looked at her, his face unreadable.

“You want to know why I didn’t tell you.” She sighed, and reached for her purse. “If you’d asked a month ago, I’d have told you it was because I was afraid you’d fire me. You aren’t known for your forgiving nature. I thought you’d react pretty much as you have.”

She turned from the fluffy pile of napkins to look him in the eye. “The one thing I never lied about, Max, was my feelings. I love Colorado. I love the Heather: Tia, the hands, the horses, all of it. Wyatt feels like the brother I always wished I had.”

She raised a hand to touch his arm, but remembered, and dropped it in her lap. “But what made High Heather my home is you. I love you, Max. I grew up without a father around, so I never saw real love between a man and woman; it took me some time to recognize it.

“I thought that if a man like you could trust me, I could believe your opinion and learn to trust myself.” She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hands, then sat straighter. “I know now that love doesn’t work that way. You have to be worthy of it—by being an honorable person.

“I didn’t understand that until tonight.” She slid off the stool and pulled the purse strap over her shoulder. “I’m not telling you this to change your mind. I’m telling you because I owe you the truth.” She stood, shoulders squared, chin raised. “And I’m done hiding from it.”

Max’s face was blank. He stared into his drink once more.

“Do you want a ride back to the hotel?”

He shook his head.

Well, I’ve got my answer.
As she trudged to the door, her stomach calmed a bit. Her life was a bombed-out shell, but maybe she could build a future from the wreckage. At least the hardest part was over. She thought about leaving him.

Well, maybe not the hardest
.

Max watched Bree’s back as she marched to the door. He ached for simpler days. The days spent with his dad, riding through the mountain passes, gathering cattle to drive to the ranch for the winter. Sweating in the hot sun, digging postholes, dreaming of nothing more than a cool shower and Tia’s enchiladas for supper. No gray. Right and wrong were absolutes back then.

He drained the last drops from his glass. He hadn’t been drunk in twenty years, but tonight he could see drunk from where he sat. His sigh stirred the bits of paper piled beside him. That was so like her. Always in motion, never able to sit and relax. Before she came, they were barely managing to keep the horses fed and stalls mucked out, much less clean tack and straighten up. Now he’d put his stable up against a professional show barn, and the income from the new boarders more than paid her salary.

She’d worked her ass off for room, board, and a couple of bucks. She’d lightened Tia’s load too, worming her way past the old woman’s stubborn pride to help out with meals. Those two laughed like little girls in the kitchen. She’d dreamed up Total Bull to put the Heather back in the black. Even the dumb move she made with that snake Trey Colburn had been her trying to help.

He signaled the bartender, pulled out his wallet, and tossed a credit card on the bar.

He reached over and wadded the shredded paper pile in his fist.

Shit, who was he kidding? Those were just flies circling the cow patty. The big issue was that he’d fallen for her, and though he now knew her name, he still didn’t know who she was. Aubrey Madison, hip, yuppie controller? Or his groom, Bree Tanner.
His
Bree.

Anger zinged once more along already crispy nerves. And his brother. Wyatt had known about her past and kept quiet, like Max was some hick who couldn’t handle the truth.

Betrayals come in many forms.

He stood and signed the bar tab. The ranch used to be a quiet, peaceful place, but everything had changed in the last six months. Wyatt had filled the house with camaraderie and laughter. Bree filled the rest: his barn, his bed, his heart. He lumbered across the room, tossing the wadded paper into the trash as he shouldered the heavy door open.

The parking lot was all but empty, as was the road beyond. A chorus of crickets began a night song, and as he lingered, Max recognized frigid air against his hot skin. He shrugged into his suit coat and glanced up at the stars, like diamonds scattered on black velvet. He’d taken the night sky for granted until Bree had talked about it, the night he’d courted her with candles and wine.

He settled his hat on his head and started walking.

Hell, Bree wasn’t a bad person. He tried to picture what prison would be like to a naive young woman like her. He shuddered. She’d made a dumb mistake and almost paid for it with her life. It had taken a ton of guts for her to start over.

His head hurt. All he wanted was to be sure of the things around him and for the ground to settle under his feet. He was so tired of making concessions. First Wyatt and his lover, now Bree and her secrets. He was a simple man, unused to all the angst, and it worried at his nerves. The sound of a freight train rumble drifted on the empty wind, and he buttoned the coat against the cold.