Last of the Red-Hot Riders (21 page)

“And then what happened?” Anna asked, agog as they drove to Houston. Cameron had left Charlie behind in Harper's care, not wanting to transport the horse just yet. Her first priority was to get Anna back home. She'd promised to finish her studies and graduate—and Cameron had promised to let her return to Hell if she still wanted to after graduation. Steel had promised Anna a job somewhere in the town during the summers, and if that was what Anna wanted to do, who was Cameron to complain? At least Anna wasn't talking about running off to California anymore. And Hell was a pretty nice place to be, if you weren't being scowled at by a handsome, sexy SEAL.

“That was it. We ate our burgers, and then he took me over to the other side in his rowboat, said he'd return Steel's paddleboat to him when he deserved to get it back, and it served him right for invading his island.” Cameron laughed in spite of herself. “He offered me the keys to his truck, but I called Harper instead, and she came and got me. And here we are, on our way to Houston.”

The brisk parting had hurt her feelings, but Cameron wasn't going to burden her sister with that. It was no one's business but hers—her stunted love life was not worth bothering anyone else with.

“That's so sad,” Anna said. “I was just sure he was in love with you.”

Cameron jumped. “You're far too young to be thinking about love. What you see in the movies isn't the way it really is.” No, love had twists and turns, and reality set in at some point to determine if a love was meant to endure. Clearly whatever had existed between Saint and her had not been of the long-lasting variety.

“You scared him,” Anna said, digging into a bag of grapes they'd bought at the store, along with some other snacks, before they'd left Hell.

“ ‘Scared him'? I don't think anything scares a man like Saint.”

“Men are human. They're just as afraid of getting hurt as we are,” Anna said practically. “You can't have grown up in our home without realizing that men and women are very different, but also that they suffer the same way.” She chewed thoughtfully on the red grapes. “Dad never really could control Mom, you know.”

“What?” Cameron glanced over at her sister. “Dad was never home. Dad was the one who couldn't be controlled.”

Anna nodded. “Dad was scared.”

Cameron didn't want to hear this. She'd been spent too many years being angry with their father to want to look for a reason for his behavior. “Look, Anna, you weren't aware of what was going on because you were so young. Dad never came to our games, never called us when he could have, never wanted to go to father-daughter dances, never even bothered to attend one single parent-teacher conference. Not even for our brothers. And you would think a man would be proud of his sons.” She felt anger washing through every part of her body all over again, anger she thought she'd put away long ago. “Mom did everything.”

“I'm not saying Dad is any kind of angel. But we've been talking lately, and Dad tells a little different story than Mom does.”

“I'm sure he does. Late in life, forgiveness isn't exactly a rare trait.”

“Yeah, but we can forgive, or we can blow up our future relationships because we can't let the past go.”

Cameron felt her eyes widen, shook her head. “I don't want to talk about this anymore.” Anna's theory was stupid. She hadn't blown up her relationship with Saint. There hadn't been a relationship beyond really delicious sex.

Okay, that wasn't entirely true, but she didn't want to think there'd been more than that right now. She missed Saint's holding her in the night, missed his kissing her until her breath was stolen and she literally felt like their bodies were one and the same.

It hurt to remember, a lot more than it should have if it had been “just sex.”

“Anyway, why do you want to go back to Hell so badly?” Cameron asked.

“Because I like it. I like the people, I like the small-town feel. Houston's great, but it's really big, and the traffic is annoying.” Anna considered that for a moment, before popping another grape into her mouth. “I think I'll apply for Mayor Judy's team.”

“Mayor Judy doesn't have a team,” Cameron said, hearing the tightness in her voice. “She never did. It was a sales job, and we all fell for it.”

“I don't think that's exactly true.”

“It is. Judy had never even asked the Outlaws to train us. She used us to try to trap them into agreeing.” Which was another reason she knew her relationship with Saint was over. No matter how much she wanted to feel otherwise, and had believed things were going to be different for them, she'd always known that he felt forced into training her once they began having sex. He'd put up a good front, but she'd never felt right about the situation. “I would have felt a lot better if the team had a plan before we got there, but we were basically the guinea pigs for Judy's vision. In the end, I realized I couldn't let one of Judy's crazy schemes become my life.”

“Ava did.”

“That's true.” Cameron was relieved to see the first sign announcing they were approaching Houston. “But you only had to be around Trace for a little while to see he was completely head over heels for Ava. And Ava was tough. She was determined to become a bullfighter.”

“Why aren't you?”

Cameron shook her head. “I'm going into the police academy. I need a real job, and security of some kind. I can't spend my whole life following the mayor's silly plan. And you know, I really think it wasn't so much about the team for Judy as that she believed if she threw three women into the Outlaws' path, they'd fall in love with hardly a protest.”

“Why would she care?”

“Because Judy's all about growing Hell, and she always has been. She wants kids in that town, wants it to be family-friendly.” And now that she knew Judy and Ivy were first cousins, and that Judy had part ownership of the Honky-tonk whether she liked it or not, it made perfect sense that Judy would do everything she could to counterbalance the Ivy effect. In other words, bring as much good to Hell as she possibly could.

Which had included bringing in three handpicked women for the Outlaws.

“If that's true, how come Judy didn't bring in a lot of girlfriend material for the
Troublemakers?”
Anna asked.

“The Horsemen.” Cameron smiled as she turned into the suburb area north of Houston where their small neighborhood sat in a landed enclave. “Judy honestly likes the Outlaws. She probably figured they deserved the trauma of falling in love. The Horsemen would be a tougher sell, I guess, since they're not exactly bachelors a woman would be proud to catch.”

“I still don't understand how Fallon and Declan can be twin brothers, and one be good and one be rotten,” Anna mused.

“Everyone makes choices.” Cameron turned into their neighborhood and saw their white-painted house on three acres, its sagging roof announcing the house's neglect over the years. The grass had grown up in bushy mustaches along the edges of the house, and it was obvious no one had brought out the Bush Hog in weeks to cut the grass. Sighing, Cameron figured she should do that while she was here, or snakes and other critters would begin making good use of the tall weeds and overgrowth to nest. “Home sweet home…I guess.”

“Damn, Cameron, it wasn't that bad.” Anna looked at her sister as Cameron parked the truck.

“Bad enough for you to concoct a story and run away.”

“Yeah, but I made a mistake. I shouldn't have done it.” Anna gathered up the food and drinks. “Thanks for letting me stay in Hell with you. It really gave me a new perspective on life.” She got out of the truck, ran inside to greet her mother and siblings.

Hell definitely could give anyone a new perspective. Cameron got out and slowly walked to the house to join everyone.

In the year that she'd been gone, the house seemed to have become duller, less crazy with confusion than Cameron remembered. Her mother's red hair had taken on a gray and auburn cast, fading from the burnt red so similar to Cameron's. Edith sat in the blue-painted kitchen, parked on a stool, smoking a joint and reading a week-old newspaper.

“Mom,” Cameron said, coming over to hug her.

“Cameron!” Edith hopped up. “You're home!”

She nodded. “Yes, I am. Where is everyone?”

“Well, let's see.” Edith passed her the joint, which Cameron put in an ashtray in a hurry. The kitchen was thick with pot fumes, and Cameron opened a window. “The boys have gone their separate ways, your sisters got jobs, and Anna got pregnant. I sent her to you when she got dumped by her lawyer boyfriend.”

Cameron sat on a stool, not happy to see her mother ticking off her children with her chipped, white-painted fingernails, leaving out details because she probably couldn't remember them. An old anger flowed over Cameron. Their lives could have been so different if their dad had been anything like a devoted father and husband. “Mom, how many of these things do you smoke a day?”

Edith looked confused. “I don't know. One for breakfast, one after dinner to help me sleep.”

Cameron looked at the dishes stacked in the sink. A moldy loaf of bread sat on the yellow Formica kitchen counter. “What can I do to help you?”

“I don't know,” Edith asked in surprise. “Do I need help?”

Maybe she didn't think she needed it. Maybe in her mother's world, everything was just fine. Cameron shook her head, realizing Saint had been right about one thing: She hadn't been home except for fast visits at the holidays, because she, too, had been running away. The past was painful to look at, and the lure of a better, different life had been strong. “I'm going to wash these dishes, okay?”

“You should sit down,” Edith said. “Those dishes aren't going
anywhere—they've
been in the sink for a week. Tell me about your banking job in Dallas.”

A cold chill swept over Cameron. “Mom, I haven't been in Dallas. I've been in Hell, Texas, training to become a bullfighter.”

Edith wrinkled her nose, toked gently and with contentment, pondering Cameron's words. “That's right, it's Joy who's gone to Dallas. Cindy went to Arkansas to take a teaching job. Marshall is in the Andes learning about sustainable farming, and Peter went up north to do something.” She furrowed the deep grooves in her forehead, lost in thought. “I remember now. Peter is trying out for a Broadway play, and Sam's here with me, looking after things,” she said triumphantly, oblivious to the fact that Sam was in a wheelchair and should have been the one in the house with needs. “Jesus, I have a lot of kids.”

Cameron smiled. “Yeah. You do. I'm going to wash these dishes, then I'll get out the Bush Hog.”

“Oh, don't!” Edith followed her to the sink. “I want to hear about your job. You're never home.” Her voice took on a pleading note. “That grass isn't going to grow much between now and next week anyway.”

“What happens next week, Mom?”

“You never know,” Edith said. “But something always does.”

Saint lounged in the hammock, enjoying the advent of fall and the last lazy days of summer. Lucky still had half a bag of dog food left, so there was no hurry to get back to town. Lucky was also enjoying his beginning training as a gun dog, which Saint was conducting with a rag doll made of T-shirt strips he tossed into the creek for Lucky to retrieve. The puppy, now more a junior dog than a puppy, was proving himself a very enthusiastic retriever. Maybe when the dog food ran out, Saint would shoot a squirrel or a rabbit for Lucky's meal, moving up his gun dog training to the next level.

He was seriously considering living out here forever.

His cell phone had long since died, a day after Cameron's departure. But he'd let Declan and Trace know the Hell's Outlaws Training Center was basically their baby for a while, at least until serious cold weather set in. Or maybe the holidays. His mother would have a fit if he didn't make it to the Thanksgiving table. You could get away with a lot with Rose, but one thing you didn't do was miss the holiday meals.

But for now, all he had to do was listen to the crickets and the birds, and the last shrills of the cicadas. He had a right badass beard going, and he was down to using baking soda for his
toothpaste—which,
he figured, was probably better for him anyway. Occasionally he ran out of
groceries—mainly
beer and ice—so he'd take the rowboat across the creek, jump in his truck, and hit up the next town over for the essentials. He knew he was becoming quite disreputable-looking, because people gave him a wide berth at the cash register. On his last trip he'd bought some deodorant just in case he was getting too ripe for civilization, and a little bit bigger box of baking soda. It was good for rinsing his clothes out in the sink, too.

A few more weeks like this, living like Grizzly Adams and communing with nature, and he'd be over Cameron for sure. He'd kicked himself for a while for not kissing her goodbye, stealing one last memory from those red velvet cake lips—but why torture himself? The goal was to exit that
relationship—since
she was determined to leave—with as little pain as possible.

He thought he heard a car engine, but that wasn't possible. More likely a crop duster had passed somewhere overhead. He was too drowsy to give a shit, and too comfortably numb to get worked up about anything beyond the beer can he was resting on his stomach. Lucky, who'd decided he liked being in the hammock with him once Cameron had taught the pooch that dogs and hammocks went together like Sundays and fried chicken, lolled beside him, two great paws dangling over the edge, his head hogging most of the pillow as he snoozed.

“Lazy animal,” Saint muttered.

Which made two of them. And he was so steeped in his comforting numbness that the bucketful of icy water that hit his midsection was a complete, jarring surprise. “Judy!” He crawled out of the hammock, releasing a few juicy swearwords. Lucky hadn't appreciated the splash, either, and jumped down to shake his coat indignantly.