Duck (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 8) (15 page)

The truck growled up the drive, headlights continuing to move for a moment after the engine cut off, gravel crunching underneath the still gliding vehicle until the squeak of the brakes signaled it pulling to a stop. The ka-chunk of the driver’s door closing caused her to draw a sharp breath, because he would be coming through the door any minute now.

Perched on one end of the kitchen table, she stilled her nervously swinging feet, bare toes curling tight until the muscles in her legs threatened a sharp cramp, uncurling slowly when, by her counted breaths, he should have already been inside. Quietly, she shifted on the hard surface, then heard the sound of booted footsteps outside. Gaze trained on the door, she waited. And waited, hearing her son turn over in his sleep overhead, the squeak of his bedframe witness to the restlessness of his rest.

She waited until the footsteps again trailed away in the distance, realizing he would not be coming inside.
Stupid man
, she thought, sliding off the table and striding towards the door. Just as she reached it, the screen door opened and she sucked in a surprised breath when underneath her hand, the inside door opened effortlessly, pushed from outside. Reuben stood there, face blank, his expression impassive, backlit by the security lights outside.

“I thought you’d gone to the barn,” she said softly.

He shook his head, gesturing over his shoulder. “Been standing on the porch, needed to think for a minute.”

“Can we…can we talk?” This wasn’t how she intended things to go. All the conversation preparation done in her head had flown right out the moment she’d seen him standing there on the porch. “I’d like to talk.”

Chin tipping to his chest, he gave a slow shake of his head, and then raised his gaze to meet hers head on, his dark brown eyes somber. “Brenda.” He paused and shook his head again. “There’s not much to talk about.”

“Not much to talk about?” Maybe she had misunderstood these past days, misheard his words.
I love you.
Lies. “Not much to talk about?” Now her voice was shrill even to her ears and she struggled for composure, fought with herself against anger in her pain. “We can’t have a conversation?”

“About the ranch or the business, yeah. We can talk about those things tomorrow, in the office. Unless there’s some catastrophe I don’t know about, we don’t need to have that conversation now, here in the doorway.” Jaw set, he stared at her, the tension in his body unmistakable. He wanted to be anywhere but here, would rather be doing anything other than speaking to her.

“What happened?” Tears had found their way close to the surface again, and she knew the sound of them was in her voice because he flinched from her words. “What did I do?”

“We’re just two different people, Brenda. No going back to when we were kids, holding on to dreams of coulda, woulda, shoulda. Life”—he gestured with both hands—“moves on.” Her throat closed at his repeated use of her name. Not Bee, not honey, nothing special in his words. With a fluid shift of his shoulders, he shrugged and she heard the leather of his vest creak in protest. “You built a life here in spite of the people you chose to work for. A good life, and I won’t stay and fuck that up for you. The Nelms’ name is shit in this town, always will be.”

Brenda tried to interrupt because once again, he wasn’t letting her talk. She couldn’t get her words out past the dam of pain.
Eli’s your son
, her brain shouted.
I love you
, her heart whispered. Standing frozen, her lips and mouth were silent, pretending they were locked tight, letting her emotions take the beating.

“I got a life outside of Lamesa. A life where folks look up to me.” He touched a piece of fabric on the front of the vest. “A name I’m proud of when I hear it in the mouths of the people around me.” His fingers clutched the side of the leather, crumpling and shaking it as he said, “This is my life. I’ve worked hard to make the club a place of prosperity. But, it’s not the place for a woman like you. Never would be a fit for you. Pipe dream to think otherwise.”

“No, Reuben.” Her mouth was finally working, and her faltering voice edged into the silence between his words. “We had an argument. People do. It happens all the time in relationships. Then they talk and make up, understanding better what makes the other tick. It was just an argument.”

“No.” He dropped the word with the finality of the timeclock’s buzzer stopping a ride. It didn’t matter if the outcome was positive or not. It was a done deal once that sound hit the air.

“Tell me what’s going on? Please, Reuben, talk to me.”

“Rodeo’s in a few days. I’ll be here three beyond the event, then I’m in the wind.” He moved slightly and she smelled him, soap clean, spiked with the faint scent of yeast speaking to the beer he’d been drinking. “Your life goes back to what it was before. Goes back to what you want.”

“What if I don’t want that anymore?” She held her breath, fingers clutching tightly at the edge of the doorframe and knob, tension holding her in place and keeping her from flinging herself at him.

“Beds were made years ago, Brenda,” he said, disappointment and bitterness heavy in his tone. “Too hard to change course now.”

“So that’s it? Your friends come to town and you get reminded I’m nothing but a small town girl willing to stay in place for years, liking that place, and it’s not anything you want? Not anything you ever wanted? I’m not?” She panted, taking in short, sharp breaths, the sound piercing the quiet night. “You said you loved me. Took me everywhere with you.” On a whisper, she reminded him, “Said being inside me was coming home. Your home. Pretty words for a small town girl?”

He stared at her for a long minute, expressions running across his face too fast to identify, not settling into place until his features tightened. In the next moment, she fell headlong into the coldness and distance created by his words. “Nice to have a warm and willing woman when you’re going to be around for a while. Eases the mind to please the body.”

***

He watched as his words hit her, saw the hard punch in the movement of her chest when she gasped for air as if her heart was seizing. Her arms slowly dropped from where they propped her between the door and the wall of the house, hands losing their grip only to find a new one when her arms wrapped around her body.

He stared as her fingernails dug viciously into her skin, saw the welling tears in her eyes recede, pulled back under control by deliberate infliction of pain. The fact this was a go-to response said a lot about what her life had been like, but he couldn’t back down now. He had to drive that wedge in deeply, pushing her far, far away.

Eyes on his, she took a step back and then paused, knee bent, leg lifted, foot suspended, a broken music box dancer halted in mid-pirouette. Her mouth opened a time or two without sound, and then she drew in a shaking breath through her nose, lips pressed tightly together.

“Is that all it was to you?” The hoarse question caught him off guard, and he very nearly shook his head, rejecting the idea, before he remembered her overheard rehearsals earlier in the day. Before he summoned up the picture of her walking alongside Winters. Before he remembered what a terrible fit they would make, here in this town where his family had caused so much pain and havoc. A town where him simply going into a store to buy feed brought hard pain to good people.

Instead, he shrugged, feeling his cut shift and move, accommodating his motion, accepting of whatever decision he made, as long as it was permitted to stay in place. Silent in his dismissal of everything they shared.

Without another sound, she whirled, foot finally coming down in a running stride straight away from him. Up the stairs and down the hall, short steps overhead ending with the complaining shift of her bed. Followed by the gut-wrenching sounds of her scarcely muffled sobs.

Elias stared at him from across the room, not saying anything with his mouth, letting his eyes do all the talking for him.
I hate you
, they glared and Duck took a pained breath.
You hurt my mom
, he read the implicit message and dropped his chin to his chest, breaking the connection. In less than ten seconds, the screen door slapped shut, Eli having made his point and then his escape.

Staring at the floor, he sat and waited patiently. She hadn’t come down this morning. Essa delivered a blunt message Brenda wasn’t feeling well as she shoved eggs and bacon across the countertop towards him, making sure he got the ‘asshole’ message loud and clear, before she strode out the door. The men filed in fifteen minutes later, and Essa’s mouth had evidently been running because none of them would meet his eyes, and Gill didn’t ask him for any assignments, handing out chores as if Duck weren’t even in the room.

Essa, the men, now Elias—it seemed everyone on the ranch hated him just as much as the folks in town did.
Good enough
, he thought,
since I’m not sticking around past the rodeo
. Brenda’s voice floated from the second floor. He listened closely, unable to make out the words. The house phone hadn’t rung, so she must have been on her cell phone. Twenty minutes later, she came running down the stairs, hair up in a twisted ponytail. She spared him a single glance, and he caught a glimpse of her eyes, swollen and raw, then her gaze was firmly on the floor as she hurried past him to the mudroom.

“Brenda,” he said, and then stopped because he had no idea what he had intended, where he wanted a conversation to go. It didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t react or respond, just tugged on her boots and practically raced out the door. A minute later, he heard an engine start and he went to the door, watching as she backed one of the trucks out, turning and driving down the recently graded road. Gone.

An hour later, the truck came back up the drive, pulling a small horse trailer. Essa was on the passenger side, Brenda in the driver’s seat as she drove past the barn and backed the trailer up to a small dirt ramp with practiced skill. The women piled out of the vehicle and he could hear their obviously continued conversation as they stopped and leaned against either side of the truck.

Essa asked, “What are you going to wear?” She tipped her head back and laughed. “Never mind, I already know. Jeans and a shirt, boots and a hat, just a regular everyday cowgirl.”

Brenda responded, “It's business, not a date. Jeans and boots are work clothes for me, so yeah, that’s what I plan on wearing. Don’t make it more than it is, Essa.”

“Not a date, my sweet ass.” Essa chortled, and he moved closer to the door in order to hear better. “I knew as soon as I saw him I should tell you. Winters is hot, woman. You should tap that.”

Brenda didn’t respond, just turned to walk to the back of the trailer. Her gaze swung to the house and he watched her stride pause when she saw him, then the moment was past and she was lowering the back ramp, Essa moving into the trailer and backing Breezy out, the big chestnut stepping carefully.

When she finally came into the house, he was still waiting. She stopped in the mudroom long enough to toe off her boots, then stepped to one side to move around him, her intentions of heading deeper into the house clear. Without meaning to, he reached out with one hand, his palm wrapping around to seize her upper arm, pulling her to a halt. “You’re going out?”

The sensation of her skin under his palm made his heart beat faster, pounding out his need. Duck pulled in a breath, thinking the same thing he had every day over the past two weeks, every time he had her with him.
So fucking beautiful
. Dark blonde hair in a tousled ponytail, color in her cheeks, rounded breasts straining the button front of the practical work shirt she wore. She was gorgeous.

Brenda didn’t respond to his question right away, just dropped her gaze to his hand where it clutched her arm and he watched as, after several moments, her lids dipped slowly closed. She licked her full bottom lip, and without opening her eyes, she whispered, “Yes.” The word was like a kick to the belly and he knew she felt him jerk when he saw her eyes squeeze shut even tighter.

“With Winters?” His voice was gruff and it was all he could do to force it out of his throat. He didn’t want it to be true. “Is this what you want, Bee?”

At his use of her nickname, her eyes flew to his and he saw the pain and hurt he had caused her, saw the raw emotion she tried to hide and if possible, his throat closed even tighter. Her breath came faster and faster the longer they stood staring, and by the time he released her, lowering his hand, she was panting in short, sharp bursts of air. This was not her moving on, but backed into a corner by events she couldn’t control. Like she told Essa, meeting Winters was part of the job. Sucking in a hard, shuddering deep breath, she lowered her eyes and walked past him, up the stairs.

Duck moved through the rest of his day by rote, not accomplishing much. He stared at the top of the desk when he was meant to be sorting paperwork, took three tries to successfully straighten a pile of tools in the tractor barn, and finally gave up reviewing breeding proposals for the stock. He did all of this while still doing his level best to ignore the pain in his chest. Several times he caught himself rubbing his sternum with the pad of his thumb, pushing hard against the bone to get at the pain underneath.

Headed to the house for supper, he noticed one of the trucks was gone. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw Essa in the kitchen. Duck stared at her for long minutes, until she looked up at him and with heavy sarcasm asked, “What?” With that, he clamped his lips shut and headed upstairs, ignoring her shout about needing help setting the table. Rushing through a shower, he dressed quickly and slung on his cut. Rattling down the stairs in his socked feet, he headed to the mudroom. “Fucking bike’d be good about now,” he muttered, shoving his feet into his boots.

“You aren’t staying for dinner?” Essa asked and he nearly jumped, her voice came from beside him. He had been so caught up in his internal planning, he hadn’t even noticed her walking across the room. Responding with a shake of his head, he stood and turned to walk out the door. A gentle hand on his arm stopped him and he tipped his head to look at her. “They’ll be at the steakhouse, and then probably head to Mitchell’s.”

“What makes you think I’m going lookin’ for Brenda?” He downplayed his heartache as he asked the question.

“Because I know what pain looks like,” she responded softly. “Don’t push her away, Reuben. Y’all are too good together. Don’t let something small come between you.”

“If it were small, it wouldn’t be a problem,” he told her. “Our lives are very different. She never wanted to leave Lamesa and I couldn’t wait to get out of town. Nothing’s changed from eleven years ago.”

“Stupid, bull-headed men.” Essa snorted a laugh and shook her head. “She hates this town. She only stayed because of you and this ranch.”

Duck went still, every noise in the room magnified until he could hear the grease popping in the frying pan on the stovetop; hear each tick of the dime store wall clock as it churned ahead, spacing out the next second, then the next. “What do you mean?”

“Blind as well as stupid,” she said, shaking her head again. “Brenda has loved you since she was a kid, so many years now. She loves you, Reuben. She’d do anything for you. Even stay in a town she hates, just because you needed her.”

“Her husband was here, their son.” He knew there was a heavy scowl on his face, but he couldn’t spare enough attention to try and smooth it away. Everything seemed poised on the cusp of something important.

“Yes, her son was here. In addition, there was that jackwit she married. Did you think to notice she only went out with him after you left town? If things had turned out different, I can’t imagine how your lives would look today, but they didn’t. She stayed, and you left. She settled, in more than one way.” Essa’s ponytail swung back and forth like a pendulum. “You need to talk to her, Reuben.”

“I left town because she wanted the bull rider. Offered her the job with DN when things lined up because we needed the help.” He swept his hand out, indicating the entire ranch. “Her whole life is here. Her aunt and uncle didn’t leave her anything and without the ranch, she would have had to leave, go to Midland or somewhere else and start over. I only ever wanted to take care of her, wanted to keep her safe.”

“Look at the pictures sometime. See how happy she looks if the focus isn’t on Eli, and by that I mean she looks like shit. Miserable and tired…sad, except for Elly-belly. And now, when she looks at you? Same look she turns on Elly-belly. She loves you, Reuben. Always has.” She swallowed, then drew in an uneven breath. “Learned long ago, from some smart people we both know, a place isn’t what makes a person happy. It’s not where you live, it’s
who
you share that life with that matters most. The people you bring in to surround yourself with, the ones you trust…those you love.” Stepping closer, she pressed one palm against his chest. “Like Mica in Chicago, who found herself a family like no other with Mason and Tug,” her voice caught and she cleared her throat before she continued, “and Slate. It’s who you love that makes everything work.”

***

Duck entered Mitchell’s through the side door, grabbing a beer from the short bar at the back of the room and finding a section of wall to lean against. With the rodeo only days away, the place was crowded with cowboys and cowgirls, competitors by the looks of them. Most dressed in well-worn boots and jeans, hat brims creased from sweaty hands, and belt leather broken in just right. Mixed in with that group were the tourists, here just for the spectacle of the rodeo. It was easy to see the difference in the groups because the wannabes mixed designer shoes with their jeans, or had on stiff felt hats which had never seen a day’s worth of sun to wilt the starch.

From his position, he had a clear view of the dance floor as well as the main bar, and within moments had spotted Brenda. She and Winters were seated at a square hightop table on the far side of the smooth, wooden floor filled with couples shuffling and swinging along. He watched for a moment, scarcely registering the dancers; women twirling out to the end of their partner’s arm and then back again, fluid movements giving witness to the hours spent in locales such as this.

With only a corner of the table between them, she and Winters were engaged in what looked to be animated conversation regardless of the volume of noise in the bar tonight. He was leaned close, his mouth near her ear and Duck watched as her head tipped back with laughter at something Winters said.

Duck frowned and then tensed even more, looking at her face. She might be laughing, but she wasn’t enjoying herself. There were lines of strain across her forehead and alongside her eyes, and he gripped the bottle in his hand tighter, his fingers aching to rub those worries away.

***

Winters placed his hand on Brenda’s forearm near her elbow and then slid it down to cup around her hand. Squeezing her fingers, he leaned close again and half-shouted, “Let’s dance.” Without giving her a chance to decline, he stood and tugged, pulling her along behind him as he moved into the spinning crowd of dancers on the floor, just as the music changed from a bouncy two-step to a slower song. Tugging at her hand again, Winters caused her to stumble and he caught her, swinging her around and pressing her against his chest.

He brought her hand up and placed it palm-down on his shoulder, then wrapped both of his hands around her waist, aligning their bodies for the dance.
This is the last thing I want to be doing right now
, she thought as she brought her other hand up and plucked his off her hip. Using the connection to push back from him by a couple inches, she looked up to see an amused look on his face as they moved to the music.

Dancing in a slow circle, she kept her head upright as she followed his lead. Leaning his upper body close, he placed his mouth near her ear and said, “I thought it might be something like that.”

Surprised, she pulled back and looked at him, seeing a smile on his face, the amused look resting easily on his features. “What are you talking about?”

“Nelms,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking regretfully. “The other day I couldn’t decide if I had a chance, or if y’all were just in mid-tiff when I saw you. Now, I know.”

Lowering her chin, she broke eye contact, dropping her gaze to the vertical lines on his western shirt. With a sigh, she nodded and agreed, “Mid-tiff.” She sighed again and began to push back, saying, “Thanks for a lovely—“

“Not so fast.” He interrupted, pulling her close again but maintaining the three-inch separation she had forced between their bodies. “You looking to make up with him soon?”

Her gaze snapped up and her body stiffened as she retorted, “I’m not looking for a fling or to fool around.”

“Not what I meant, darlin’.” He laughed aloud as he said this, a tug on her hand trying to urge her slightly closer. “He’s watching us, had eyes on us since before we hit the floor, and it looks like there’s about a month's worth of pissed off on his face right now. If you wanted to tweak his nose, we could snuggle up and have a sweet little dance.”

Pushing back again, she shook her head. “I’m not a game-player, Doc. Not my style.”

“You came out with me tonight,” he reminded her. “You sure about your style?”