Sweet Talking Cowboy (14 page)

Across the room Slade slowly turned and looked at her and
Briann suddenly realized how angry and hurt he was.  She turned and walked over
to the dresser, looking for her cell phone before she remembered it was in her
pocket.  She pulled it out and pushed in the house number.  She needed to know
that Tris was alright.  She waited while the phone rang, and when no one
answered, she left a message for Aunt Poog to call her.  Finally she looked at
Slade, her eyes meeting his, determined and steady.

His anger was tightly reined in and it was taking more
self-control then he knew he had.  “Bri, your husband
is
dead.  Who
would have been raising Tristan?”

She thought about it.  Evan was dead, his father was in a
nursing home, Shelly was planning her own wedding, and Evan’s mother was well
into her sixties.  She sighed.  The past couldn’t be changed and nothing had
happened to her.  She and Tris were home now and she was in this room, having
this conversation with Slade.  She’d known from the day she’d decided to come
home that this was all possible.  Why hadn’t she accepted it?  Why hadn’t she
planned for it?

“Alright.  How do you want this to work out?”  She snapped. 
“I’m not saying that you’re right.  I’m just wondering what it is exactly that
you want.”  She was pleased that her voice sounded so strong and confident.

He looked away first and she felt she’d won a small battle
in the war.  “I…I’m not really sure.”  He paused for a minute thinking.  Then
he looked at her.  “I want to know what happened.  Why’d you leave?”

She shook her head negatively.  “I’m not going there,
Slade.  That’s all water under the bridge.”  But she recognized resistance in
his eyes.

“Oh, but we are goin’ there, Bri.”  His face was hard again
and his eyes were like melted glass, burning into her.

“It really doesn’t matter,” she started and intended to add
more, but suddenly he had crossed the room and grabbed the pony tail on the
back of her head.  That ended her reply.

“It might not have mattered to you, but dammit it mattered
to me!  All I could get out of Mike or Poog was that you decided what happened
between us was a mistake!  Now, you will tell me, Briann, or so help me, I
don’t know what I might do.  I’m tired of wonderin’ what went wrong.”  His
voice was soft, not raised in anger, but she felt the fury that emanated from
his entire body.

“Let me go!”  She twisted, trying to loosen his grip, but
Slade wasn’t letting go.

“Stop it,” he growled.  “Just start talkin’.”  At that
moment, he didn’t care that he was hurting her.  He intended to get the answers
he needed and if she wanted to fight, he was ready for that too.  “Why?”

Slowly she stopped struggling.  She’d never feared Slade,
not physically, but there was something in his voice and in his eyes that
warned her not to push him any further.

“Let me go.”  She insisted her voice calm, her eyes looking
steadily into his, but her fighting finished.  At first, he only loosened the
grip on her mink brown pony tail, but then gradually withdrew his hand.

Taking a deep breath, she turned her back to him, and walked
over to lean against the wall near the window.  “I left because I couldn’t
stand the thought of being with you after I found out what a fool you thought I
was.”

He raked one hand through his thick black hair.  “What the
hell are you talkin’ about?”  Slade swore softly and she knew he was still
struggling to control his anger.

“Tanya!”  Briann snapped, almost hating the sound of the
name coming out of her mouth.  She turned and glared at him.  “I’m talking
about Tanya!”

He shook his head in uncertainty, confusion apparent on his
face.  “What does she have to do with any of this?  I don’t have a clue what
you’re talkin’ about.”

Taking another deep breath she sighed.  “I went to your
place, early that afternoon, like we’d talked about.  I saw her leaving your
apartment.  She barely had her clothes on, her make up all smeared.  When she
knew I’d seen her, she just warned me that if I told your father, he’d never
believe it.”  She blinked back tears that pooled in her eyes.  “Damn you,
Slade!  How could you…..be with her?”

Slade seemed to draw up taller and his eyes narrowed. 
“Tanya?”  He shook his head negatively.  “You thought I’d been with Tanya?”

“She told me!  Didn’t you hear what I just said?  She didn’t
even bother to finish buttoning her blouse.  She wasn’t trying to hide it from
me!”  Briann retorted angrily.

Slade laughed, but it was an angry laugh.  “That lyin’
bitch.”  Then his face changed and his eyes softened.  “She found the note I
left you.  She was the one who threw it in the trash.”

Now Briann looked confused.  “What note?  What are you
talking about?”

“Don’t you see, Bri?  I couldn’t call you to let you know I
wouldn’t be there when you got there.  My cell phone got fried when I was
caught in the rain ridin’ one of the colts out in the field.  Then one of the
hands needed help takin’ a flat tire off the tractor on the other side of the
farm.  I left a note on the door, tellin’ you to go on up and make yourself
comfortable, that I’d be back as soon as I could get back.  Tanya must have
found the note.  That lyin’ slut!”  His anger was back, but at least for now,
it wasn’t directed at her.

Briann found his story difficult to believe and told him so.

Slade stalked the length of the room several times; he
couldn’t really understand why Briann would have just accepted that Tanya was
telling the truth.  “You believed what that bitch told you, but you think I’m
lyin’?  Do you
really
think I’d sleep with her after all the hell she’s
caused in my life?  And besides that
she’s my father’s wife
!”  Then he
shrugged.  “Of course, she’s been tryin’ to seduce me ever since I turned
eighteen.  I learned real quick to avoid bein’ alone with her.”

“She wasn’t your lover?”  It was the first time Briann had
ever considered the thought that maybe it was Tanya who’d played her for a
fool.

“My lover?  Hardly.  When I came home from Texas and saw
you, I couldn’t think about anything but you.  In fact, if you want the cold
hard fact, I went to Texas because if I hadn’t, Mike would have killed me, or
I’d have gone to jail for molestin’ you.  Even back then I wanted you and
you
were still a kid
.  My insides were in knots all the time.  I had to get
away from the temptation that you’d become.”

She just looked at him, his words making no sense to her.

Slade knew he needed to make her understand.  “By the time
you turned fifteen, you lived in a woman’s body.  I knew you had a crush on me,
and there were times I was so tempted to play into it.  I finally decided that
I had to get away from you before I did something I couldn’t change.”  He wouldn’t
look at her.  “You don’t know how ashamed I was of feelin’ like that toward
you.  I knew you were just an innocent kid, but I wanted you so bad I ached. 
If I’d stayed, I don’t know what might have happened.  I couldn’t treat you
like that, or Mike and Poog, so I went to Texas and stayed.  Then Hank told me
you and Jeffery had started talkin’ about marriage.  I decided I’d come home and
see what might happen.  And you know the rest.”

Briann continued to just look at him.  She couldn’t believe
what she was hearing.  Finally she turned and walked across the room.  She sat
down on the side of the bed and felt all the anger and hurt rushing through her
heart.  He’d been attracted to her when she was just fifteen?  Slowly she shook
her head.  “All that was a long time ago, Slade.  It doesn’t have much to do
with here and now.”  She was tired.  She didn’t want to fight; she just wanted
him to leave.

Her cell phone rang and she opened it, “Hello?”

It was Aunt Poog.  “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m alright.”  She snapped, knowing that was the only
answer that she could give right now.

“Is Slade there with you?”  Aunt Poog asked, hesitantly.

“Unfortunately,” Briann admitted.

“Briann, I know you’re probably angry with me, but you know
as well as I do, now that Slade has figured it out, y’all need to talk things
over and come to some agreement, for Tris’ sake.  I told Slade the same thing.”

“I’m not angry, Aunt Poog.  Well, maybe I am, but I just
want you to tell me that Tris is alright.”  She would have loved talking to the
child but knew she was probably in bed early to get rested for the trip to Wild
Adventures.

“Of course, she’s fine.  If she weren’t, I’d have called
you.”  Poog’s voice almost sounded as if she were scolding a child.

“Okay.  I just wanted to hear that.”  They exchanged only a
few more words, and then Briann closed the phone and placed it on the table
beside the bed.  She felt the bed move and looked around.  Slade had sat down
on the other side facing away from her.  There was a long heavy silence that
seemed to swell, filling the room with its presence, making the atmosphere
almost stifling.  She heard a door down the corridor of the hotel slam shut.

“What do you want, Slade?”  She finally asked.

“I want to be Tristin’s father,” he answered without
hesitation or doubt.

“So if I admit that you are, you’ll leave?”  She was still
hoping she might get away with some small victory.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, Bri.  Not for a while.  This isn’t
a matter of you telling me I’m her father.  Hell, I already know that.  I want
more.”

She knew he was still facing the opposite side of the room. 
“So tell me exactly what you have in mind.  I’m tired and have a long day ahead
of me tomorrow.  I need to get some rest.  I’m not up to playing mind games.”

His chuckle was dry and without humor.  “There isn’t one
little part of this that feels like a game to me, Briann.  You want me to tell
you exactly what I have in mind?  Alright.  You and I are gettin’ married. 
We….”

Briann sprang off the side of the bed and she whirled around
to face him.  “Are you out of your mind?”

He shrugged.  “Damn, Bri, I just might be.  I don’t even
know any more.  But I do know that’s the only way I can truly be Tristin’s
father.  I’ll have papers drawn up to change her name, and we’ll sit down
together with her and explain that I am her real father, and we are goin’ to be
a real family.”

Briann stood there looking at him, unable to believe what
she was hearing.  Her head was spinning, her heart was pounding.  It was just
too much at one time.  This could not be happening.  “You have totally flipped
out.”  She finally said.

Slade shrugged.  “That’s possible, I suppose.  But it’s all
I can come up with.  Can you come up with a better idea?”

“Yes,” she snapped.  “I’ll tell her you’re her father and
you can come see her as often as you like.  That’s not real complicated.”

He shook his head from side to side.  “No, it’s not.  But it
also puts limits on me bein’ with her and it doesn’t do anything to guarantee
me any legal rights as her father.”

“And us getting married will?”

He nodded.  “Yes.  We can live there with Poog.  I’ll be
there all the time.  I can help her with her school work.  I can be there to
tuck her in at night……..I won’t have to leave.”

“And you think we can live together?  We can hardly be in
the same room without fighting.”

Slade’s lips lifted in a smile and his blue eyes softened. 
“The fight is all from you, Bri.  You’re like a scared little kitten backed
into a corner with your back arched and spittin’ like crazy, tryin’ to protect
yourself.”

She frowned.  “It’s a little late for a happily ever after. 
Don’t you think?”  Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“No, I don’t think so.  Oh, I’ll admit it’ll take some gettin’
used to, but Mike always said where there was a spark, there was fire.”  Slade
could almost hear the old man’s voice.  “And I’m sure you remember the fire
that we got caught up in, in this room the night Tristin was conceived.  I sure
as hell do!”

Briann looked away.  Then she heard movement from the bed
and when she looked back he was standing, walking around the bed to where she
was.  She backed away from the fire in his eyes that had nothing to do with
anger.  “Slade, you just stop right there.  We’ll talk about this some more.”

“I’m tired of talkin’, Bri.  Besides, you’ve got a long day
ahead of you tomorrow and need to get some rest.”  He stalked her until she was
backed in the corner between the wall and the bed, then he stretched out one
hand and gently lifted a strand of her long richly brown hair.  “Is that fire
still there?  Just one kiss and I’ll know.  Then I’ll leave you alone.  I
promise.  I don’t care how you beg.  I’ll sleep over there in the chair.”

She slapped at his hand.  “Stop it, Slade.  I’m not kissing
you and you’re not sleeping in this room.”

He ignored her and slowly lifted the strand of hair to his
lips.  “Then I’ll kiss you and won’t sleep in the chair.  See, you’re already
beggin’ for more.”  His baritone voice had become a husky drawl.

The rough note in his voice had kicked her heart rate up
several notches, but she couldn’t let him know that.  She punched his shoulder
with a fist, hard, and then when she would have swung her other fist at his jaw;
he caught it and being careful not to hurt her, twisted it around behind her,
effectively wrapping her in his arms.

She struggled.  “Stop it!”  She sounded like a hissing
kitten.

He just held her quietly, “It’s alright,” he soothed her,
using the same voice he’d use to calm a nervous horse.  “Shhh.”

Each time he thought she might be relaxing, she’d struggle
again, but he continued to hold her and eventually she ceased fighting. 
“Slade, let me go.  Please.”  She finally pleaded.

He hesitated, but there was a spark of fear in her eyes.  He
knew that he could over power her and he was almost certain that her resistance
was only a token resistance, and that her fear was of the attraction they
shared, but he just couldn’t make himself use force against her.  Slowly,
reluctantly he released her and stepped back.  “You win this round.  But when
we get back home, we are gettin’ married, and you can forget me leavin’ this
room tonight.  I’ll sleep in my clothes on the floor, in front of the door if I
have to, but I’m not takin’ any chance on you runnin’ away again.”