Zack (Armed and Dangerous Book 1) (16 page)

She clenched the handgrips of her crutches. “I keep my promises.” Before she could stop herself, she said, “Unlike you. You promised we’d always be together and you left.”

Regret and pain flashed through his eyes and she immediately wished she could take the words back.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “But that’s not going to happen again.”

Sky looked away. “Satan’s in fine form today.” With awkward movements, Sky turned, using her crutches. She moved toward the inside of the barn and tried not to meet Zack’s gaze.

Zack moved beside her, matching her pace. They didn’t say anything, even when they reached the hay bales that Zack covered with horse blankets. When she sat, she had to admit it was a relief to get off her feet despite her crutches.

While he worked with Satan she marveled at the progress Zack had made in a short amount of time. It was clear he had a natural ability to tame little demons like the yearling. Zack was patient and persistent. He was gentle, yet he made it clear who was boss—and it wasn’t Satan.

Zack broke the ice that had formed between himself and Sky by asking her questions about her breeding stock and what plans she had for the future of the ranch. It wasn’t long before they were chatting comfortably, as if what she’d said before hadn’t happened.

When Zack stopped to take a breather, he sat on the hay bale beside Sky. He downed a bottle of water he’d taken from the small fridge by the sink in the back of the barn. She always kept it stocked with water, considering this was Arizona and it was easy to become dehydrated. Sky took a drink of her own water.

“Did you ever finish that quilt you started with your mom?” Zack asked with a little grin as he looked down at Sky.

“Uh, no.” Sky’s cheeks heated a little. “I’m making more squares.”

He gave a low laugh. “Twelve years later and you’re still doing that?”

“Thirteen.” She gave him a sheepish look. “I think I might have enough made for six quilts.”

“Why don’t you finish it?” Zack asked, and he looked like he was genuinely interested.

Sky shrugged. “I guess it’s because it’s a part of my mom and I just don’t want to let go.”

“You still miss her a lot,” he said quietly.

Sky looked down at her shoe as she swung her good foot back and forth. “It was like a flame was suddenly doused when she passed on. I keep wanting to relight it.” She sighed. “But there’s no going back and trying to change the past. All we can do is work on the future.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Zack said, and another tingle spread throughout her. She felt his body heat while she drank in his masculine scent of a warm summer’s day. His scent was almost heady.

She stared at her bandaged foot. Desperate to change the subject, she looked up at him and asked, “How’s your mother?”

He turned away and stared straight ahead. “She’ll never be the same after what my father did to her.”

Sky frowned. “You mean your stepfather?”

Zack continued staring down the barn pathway, as if seeing something Sky didn’t. “No. I mean my birth father.”

“You’ve never said anything about him before.” Sky felt a twinge in her chest like something bad had happened.

Zack gave a mirthless laugh. “The man who fathered me nearly destroyed my mother, and her second husband pretty much finished the job.”

Sky reached out and touched his arm. “Whatever happened, was it in Flagstaff? Before you moved to Douglas?”

The tension in him radiated through his hand and he still didn’t look at her. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Why not?” she said softly.

Zack was quiet for a long moment before his gaze met hers. “Maybe it’s because I’ve gone over and over it in my mind so many times that I can’t stand to say it out loud.”

The twist in Sky’s chest became a deep ache. “Your father beat your mother?”

“From the time we were kids. Probably longer.” The pain in Zack’s eyes made her want to reach out and hold him tight. “And if he wasn’t knocking the crap out of her, it was my brother and me.” Zack’s throat worked as he swallowed.

Sky squeezed his hand harder, the ache in her chest increasing so much that she wondered how she could breathe. This was a part of Zack she’d never known, and she had no idea what to say.

“When we were old enough to understand what was happening, Cabe and I tried to get the bastard to take it out on us instead of on our mother.” Zack took off his hat and set it on the hay bale before he pushed his free hand through his hair. “It never mattered, though. He beat the shit out of her anyway.” What Zack had gone through... Sky couldn’t begin to imagine. She wanted to cry for him. For that abused child who’d had to see his mother beaten, too.

He heaved a sigh. “When I was around twelve and Cabe thirteen, we started trying to fight back, but our father was a big son of a bitch.”

Sky moved closer to Zack so that her thigh touched his. She leaned her head against his shoulder and turned his hand over so that she could lace her fingers with his. She was almost afraid to ask her next question, but she got it out. “What happened to your father? Is he still alive?”

“He was killed while hunting deer with my brother and me.” Zack’s throat sounded hoarse. “Cabe shot my father by accident.”

Sky sucked in her breath and raised her head from his shoulder. The tears inside her were getting harder and harder to hold back. “Oh, my God.”

As his gray eyes met hers, Zack said, “The old man deserved it.” Zack looked away from Sky again. “As usual, he’d kicked us around when he made me and Cabe camp out with him the night before he died.”

Sky laid her head against Zack’s shoulder and this time closed her eyes as his pain washed through her. She couldn’t remember him ever talking so much.

“He wasn’t drunk, so we knew he was serious when he told us how he’d had it with our mother. Called her a whore and said she screwed around and we weren’t even his. Not that we hadn’t heard that one before. But this time he said he was going to kill her when we got home.”

Sky felt wetness behind her eyelids as her eyes stung, and she kept them shut tight.

“Cabe and I didn’t talk that night,” Zack continued in his hoarse voice. “But I’m sure that like me, he was thinking about how we could protect our mom when we got home.”

A tear rolled down Sky’s cheek as they gripped each other’s hand tightly. “It didn’t matter anymore after the accident,” Zack said. “She was safe.”

Sky raised her face and looked at him as a few more tears made their way down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

Zack cupped her face in his hands and brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “Don’t cry. Please.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this back when we were together?” she asked as another tear escaped.

“What you and I had—it was so clean and beautiful.” He pressed his lips to her forehead before looking at her again. “I didn’t want to smear what we had with dirt from my past.”

The awful words she’d said earlier to him about not keeping his promises came back to hit her like a slap. She was such a bitch. He’d had an awful life as a child and had kept it from her because he’d cared. And here she’d gone and said something so mean.

Zack brought her close so that he held her face against his chest. “What you said earlier was true, Sky. There’s no going back and trying to change the past. All we can do is work on the future.”

Sky paused from mucking out Satan’s stall with a rake to wipe sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. A cool October breeze stirred the loose hair at her cheeks and chilled her skin.

It was Thursday, almost one week since her injury. Her ankle still felt a little stiff and sore, but as far as she was concerned, she had recovered and didn’t need help from anyone—no matter what Zack might think.

Satan stirred beside her in the stall, but thanks to Zack’s help, she didn’t have to worry about the little shit mowing her down. What Zack had done in a week—she had to admit it would have taken her two or three weeks.

Thank God there’d been no more attempts to take Satan or any of her other prize stock over the past few days. As far as they could tell from her ranch hands’ checking fences and the herd, rustlers had left her cattle alone for the time being.

Unfortunately, neighboring ranchers, whose herds had been untouched before, had now lost several head of cattle. Wade had stopped by a couple of times, but she always cut him off.

She’d talked with Sheriff Wayland once and he’d said they were ramping up the investigation but had nothing concrete as of that time.

In other words, they didn’t know anything, or wouldn’t tell her if they did.

When she’d asked Zack if he’d had any news, an expression of frustration had come over his features and he’d shaken his head.

She’d taken that as a resounding “no.”

While she raked manure out of Satan’s stall, it was like dust motes and sunshine tickled the inside of her belly as she realized Zack would be arriving soon. At the same time she felt a twinge of regret that they’d come to the end of their agreement. He wouldn’t be coming over daily to work with Satan now that her ankle was pretty much healed.

No
. Not regret. She was thrilled that she didn’t have to put up with Zack’s hero routine any longer. Sky grimaced and swatted an insistent horsefly away from her face. Yeah, right. In truth, she’d miss having him around.

Satan butted her thigh and she paused raking to scratch the bull behind his ears. “You’ll miss him, too, won’t you?” she murmured. The devilish spark was still in Satan’s eyes, but he was no longer bent on plowing down anyone who came near him.

Sky sighed and got back to work cleaning the yearling’s stall.

Barn smells of hay, horse, and manure comforted her. Much more so than Zack’s masculine scent. When she was near him she felt at ease, yet she also felt wild and restless, and more than a little reckless.

Every day Zack had shown up any time from dusk to dark, depending on how his day had gone. Sky had expected—had wanted—him to take advantage of the time they’d spent together by trying to get her clothes off.

But to her surprise and dismay he hadn’t.

She’d asked him a couple of times if he wanted to go into the house for a glass of iced tea. He’d look at her and ask if she’d changed her mind about giving their relationship another chance.

“No,” came to her lips each time so fast, so automatically, that she hadn’t even paused to think his question over.

“Then there’s your answer,” he said the first time, then went to the back of the barn and got a water bottle, and brought her back a bottle, too.

She’d wanted to throw it at him for being so stubborn. They didn’t have to have a serious relationship to enjoy each other’s company a little more intimately.

Sky gripped the smooth wooden handle of the rake tighter as she paused in cleaning out the stall and tried to figure Zack out. He seemed so serious, wanting a relationship with her and refusing to take it any further until she agreed.

Instead, he’d spent time with Satan, made sure the stalls and aisles were mucked out, and asked her if there was anything else she needed help with. Then Zack would brush his lips across hers and go.

And she’d missed him. Wanted to be with him intimately but wanted to enjoy his companionship, too.

But promise to start their relationship over? She just hadn’t been able to do that.

While he’d spent time with Satan, they’d talked about everything and nothing at all. Zack would share his day at work and talk about his mother, whom he’d stop by to check in on as often as he could. Every now and then he’d bring up his brother, Cabe, and tell Sky about some of the stunts they’d pulled as kids.

They never talked about his father again.

Sky in turn would talk to him about her sister, Trinity, and how she seemed to love her job in England. Sky would confide in Zack her concerns about the rustlers and tell him more about her plans for upgrading the herd and breeding championship stock.

Talking with him was easy and natural. It made her realize how immature their relationship had been ten years ago. They’d talked, yes, but their relationship had been fiery and passionate, based more on sex than substance.

She sighed and leaned on the rake for a moment as her eyes un-focused and she could only see Zack in place of everything else.

This past week, about the only thing they hadn’t talked about was the future of their relationship.

Friendship, she reminded herself.

“Bad girl,” Zack’s deep voice rumbled behind her.

Sky yelped and spun around, almost clobbering him with the rake. “Don’t scare me like that!” She punched him in his muscled biceps.

“The deal was a whole week, sweetheart.” He took the rake from her hands and set it against the side of the stall, then placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve got one more day.”

His stormy gray eyes captured her, and she felt as if she was hovering on the edge of a precipice. Just one step and she’d throw herself over.

She swayed toward him, intoxicated by his earthy scent and potent sexuality. “My ankle’s fine,” she murmured, amazed she’d found her voice.

He rubbed her arms through the light material of her T-shirt, setting her skin on fire. “Humor me.”

Oh, she’d like to humor him all right. In the barn, in broad daylight—anywhere.

Zack brushed his lips over her hair and released her to grab the rake. Muscles in his arms and back bunched as he worked, and she barely contained a sigh.

She frowned and moved away. While Zack worked with Satan, she busied herself brushing down Empress. The sorrel mare whickered her pleasure and lipped Sky’s braid. She couldn’t help glancing at Zack, watching how gentle he was with the yearling.

For the first time in the week she and Zack had spent together, they said little. It was a companionable silence, but because he wouldn’t be coming over every day to tame Satan she already missed Zack.

When they were finished, Sky walked him to his truck. She only had a limp now.

A breathtaking sunset rode the horizon, gold, pink, and purple streaking the sky above the Mule Mountains.