The Loner (2 page)

“It doesn’t really matter why you’re here,” Blackjack said at last. “So long as you’re gone in the next twenty-four hours. If you’re still in Bitter Creek the day after tomorrow, I’ll make sure that badge comes off and the job goes away. Is that understood?”

Billy said nothing, simply stared back into his father’s
cold gray eyes. What could he say? Jackson Blackthorne would do what he had to. And Billy would do what he had to.

Someone smacked a palm against the glass aquarium at the end of the bar and the dangerous diamondback inside lifted its head and rattled an irritable
chik-chik-chik-chik-chik
.

Billy turned to chase away the man who was bothering the snake—and locked eyes with Summer Blackthorne.

“Billy.”

Billy felt his heart leap to his throat, making speech impossible. He searched Summer’s face, seeing the wounded look in her hazel eyes, the pouty lower lip, the petal-soft cheeks, the silky golden curls that made him yearn to touch.

At that instant, the bartender showed up and set a baby bottle in front of Billy. “Here’s that milk you ordered. I had to warm it up on the stove in back.”

Billy saw the startled look in Summer’s eyes. He turned toward the bartender and said, “What do I owe you?”

The bartender waved a hand and grinned. “It’s on the house. Can’t wait to tell folks how Bad Billy Coburn showed up at the Armadillo Bar at two in the mornin’ askin’ me to fill a baby bottle with warm milk. You gonna suck that up yourself? Or you got a baby somewhere? Didn’t hear you got married or nothin’.”

The bartender waited expectantly for an answer. Billy felt the hot flush running up his throat as he met Blackjack’s speculative gaze in the mirror above the bar. He didn’t dare look at Summer. He wasn’t about to tell these
people why he needed a baby bottle filled with warm milk. It was none of their damn business.

“Thanks,” Billy said. He took the bottle and headed for the door, his ferocious look daring any of the drunken cowboys he passed along the way to say a word. He hadn’t been called Bad Billy Coburn all his life for nothing. He’d grown up in Bitter Creek fighting everyone and everything. Even if you weren’t looking for trouble, Bad Billy Coburn would give it to you.

He shoved his way out the door, then stopped and gulped a breath of cool, fresh air.

I’m not Bad Billy anymore. I’m just Billy
.

He’d grown up in the two years he’d been gone. He’d become a respected and respectable man. He was a TSCRA field inspector, a lawman who carried a gun and hunted down bad men. He was no longer looking for trouble.

But goddamn if it didn’t always seem to find him.

What were the chances he’d run into Jackson Blackthorne first thing on his return to Bitter Creek? And Summer. She was the last person he’d wanted to see. He’d spent the past two years putting her out of his mind, telling himself he had to focus on making a life for himself before he could ever think about coming back to mend fences with her. He shouldn’t be here now. But here he was.

Billy headed for his pickup, his long strides eating up the distance across the potholed asphalt. He’d reached the hood of his battered Dodge when he heard Summer calling him.

“Billy! Wait up. Billy! I want to talk to you.”

He could have run. He could have jumped inside the cab and gunned the engine and been gone before Summer caught up to him. But it might be the last chance he had to talk with her before she got married. Before she belonged to another man.

A quick glance showed that the baby strapped securely in the car seat had finally cried himself to sleep. He’d been wailing so loudly and miserably, after being so good during the long drive from Amarillo, that Billy had stopped at the Armadillo Bar to get a bottle of warm milk before driving the last half hour home.

Billy reached through the open window and set the bottle on the seat, then turned and crossed his arms, leaning his hip against the rusted-out fender, waiting for Summer Blackthorne to reach him.

She was breathless when she stopped in front of him, her chest heaving beneath the tailored white Western shirt she’d belted into skintight Levi’s. She was wearing her favorite pair of tooled red leather cowboy boots, which cost more than he and his mother and his younger sister Emma used to spend on food in six months.

It reminded him why he’d left the broken-down ranch where he’d grown up to seek a better life. Summer Blackthorne was way out of his class. And nothing much had changed in two years.

“What do you want, Summer?”

She looked anxious and uncertain. He resisted the urge to offer comfort. They’d been good friends—just friends—for a couple of years before she’d gotten curious two years ago and kissed him. There’d been no going back to being friends after that. He’d wanted more. He’d
wanted it all, even if she hadn’t been sure whether she wanted him as more than a friend. But Blackjack had put a stop to that.

“I hear you’re getting married,” he said, to make sure he kept his distance—and she kept hers.

“In two weeks,” she said.

“I guess congratulations are in order.”

“I suppose.”

He lifted a brow. “You must like this one, if you agreed to marry him.” She’d often told him how much she resented her father shoving young men under her nose for approval. How all Blackjack wanted was for her to marry some scion of a landed family and bear him a grandson who could grow up and run the Bitter Creek Cattle Company, when what she’d always wanted was to run Bitter Creek herself.

She shrugged. “Geoffrey’s a good man.”

“I suppose he’s rich,” Billy said.

“His family are old friends of my father. And yes, they’re wealthy.”

“Do you love him?” Billy didn’t know what had possessed him to ask such a question. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

She looked at him, her heart in her eyes. “Doesn’t it?”

“Why did you come out here?” he asked, not bothering to keep the impatience from his voice.

“I… wanted to see you.”

He spread his arms wide. “If I’m not mistaken, your last words to me before I left Bitter Creek were ‘I hate you.’ You seemed pretty certain about never wanting to lay eyes on me again.”

“You were hateful, if you’ll recall. You—”

“What is it you want from me?” he said, staring her down. “You’re getting married in two weeks. And I’m heading back to Amarillo.”

“My parents were arguing again and… I know everything now.”

Billy felt a chill run down his spine. He kept his eyes on her, waiting to see what she would say.

“About you being Daddy’s son. And that you knew it before you left.”

He took a shaky breath and let it out. “Yeah. Well. It’s no big deal.”

She lowered her eyes to her hands, which were knotted in front of her. “I felt so relieved, because it explained why you went away without a fuss. I mean, if you thought we were related, then of course we couldn’t be together. So why shouldn’t you accept Daddy’s offer?”

Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet his gaze. “And then I remembered that I’d told you that my father’s foreman was my biological father. So you knew we weren’t related. And you left anyway.”

He heard the torment in her voice and felt sick inside. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He’d wanted to love her, to marry her and live happily ever after with her. But she’d lived her entire life in comfort and ease, and he’d been certain that whatever love she’d felt for him would have died a quick and certain death when she found herself living on a derelict ranch in the dirt-poor surroundings which were all he could offer her. And after what had happened with his stepfather, he’d never take a penny of Blackthorne money, even if it belonged to his wife.

“It wouldn’t have worked, Summer,” Billy said softly.

“Why not?”

Billy shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. You’re getting married and…” He glanced over his shoulder at the child sleeping in the car seat. “I’ve got responsibilities.”

She started toward the pickup and he held up a hand. “Don’t wake him. He just went to sleep.”

“Are you married, Billy?”

He hesitated, then said, “No.”

“Then whose baby is that?”

“Will is my son.”

She looked up at him, visibly shocked by his announcement. He realized that he wanted her to see the one good thing he’d accomplished in the two years he’d been gone. He wanted her to see Will.

He stepped aside and she stared, wide-eyed, at the sleeping baby. “Oh, my God, Billy,” she said reverently. “He’s beautiful.”

She reached through the open window and brushed aside a dark, baby-damp curl from Will’s forehead.

When she did, Billy’s heart clutched. It had been impossible not to wonder what Summer would think, what she would say, when she saw Will. Billy felt proud—and protective—of his son. He’d wanted Will from the moment he’d known of his existence, when the barmaid he’d shared a bed with had come to him for the money to get rid of his baby.

He’d paid her instead to bear the child, and no moment in his life had been more profound than the first time he’d held the soft, fragile weight of his son in his large, workworn hands.

Summer turned to him, her eyes glistening with tears, and said, “I never expected this. You, a father.”

She smiled and his heart turned over.

She stepped toward him, her arms widespread to give him a hug. He knew better. She was getting married in two weeks. She would never be his. It could only hurt more if he—

But Summer didn’t hesitate. Before he could turn away, she was pressed against him, her breasts soft against his chest, her arms circled around his waist.

His arms just naturally enfolded her. He closed his eyes as he imprinted the feel of her against his body one last time. He stuck his nose in her hair and breathed the flowery scent of her shampoo.

His erection was an unwelcome surprise, and he edged his hips away, not wanting her to know how quickly and undeniably he’d responded to her. He raised his head to look into her eyes, but she kept her face hidden against his chest. He grabbed a handful of her silky curls and tugged her head back so she was forced to look up at him.

Tears had welled in her eyes and one slipped onto her cheek.

“What’s this?” he murmured, brushing aside the tear with the pad of his thumb.

“I’m just happy to see you,” she said. “I missed you.”

Billy hissed in a breath. He bit back the response on the tip of his tongue.
I missed you, too
. Why say the words when they would only cause more heartache?

He saw the shiver run through her before she asked, “Do you love her? The baby’s mother, I mean.”

Billy snorted softly. “She was warm comfort on a cold night.”

“Where is she now?”

“Don’t know and don’t care.”

“I’m so sorry,” Summer said.

“For what? There was no love lost between us by the time Will was born. He’s better off without her. With me, he’ll never know a day when he isn’t loved.”

He met her gaze defiantly. His son wasn’t going to be bruised or beaten or left to wonder what he’d done wrong when all he’d ever wanted was to please his father.

“I gotta go,” he said.

But she held on. “Why did you come back?” she asked.

Billy sighed. He might as well tell her the truth. It was going to come out eventually. “My mom’s sick. My sister says she’s been asking for me.”

Billy knew what his mother wanted. Forgiveness for letting herself be bought off by Eve Blackthorne. And for letting his father beat the crap out of him till he was old enough to fight back. Billy wasn’t sure he could ever forgive her. But his sister had begged him to come home… before it was too late.

“I didn’t realize your mother was ill,” Summer said, her hand brushing the wrinkles out of the front of his shirt in a gesture that felt like a caress. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Cancer.”

“Oh, no. Is it bad?” Summer asked.

“She’s dying.”

“Oh, Billy.”

She hugged him again.

It amazed him how much he wanted—needed—that hug. She felt so good in his arms. Like she belonged there.

But she didn’t.

“Summer, I gotta go.” He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. He chucked her softly under the chin in an effort to take the hurt look from her eyes and reminded her why he had to keep his distance by saying, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you didn’t wait for me to make my fortune and come back for you.”

Her brow furrowed. “Was I supposed to?”

His lips curved in a regretful smile as he brushed at a strand of hair that had blown across her cheek. “No, I suppose not.”

“You took my father’s bribe, Billy. You left and never looked back. You never called me, never wrote me, never did a thing to let me know that you were even still alive.”

He heard the anger and resentment he’d been expecting from the first. He was surprised to discover he shared her feelings. “Neither did you.”

She huffed out a breath of air. “You were the one who ran away. How could I believe you really wanted me when I realized you knew the truth—and still let my father buy you off?”

Billy resisted the urge to explain. She would never understand the despair he’d felt, the gold ring he’d grasped for—the chance to leave Bitter Creek and make something of himself for her, to be worthy of her.

Well, he’d done it. He had a job he loved and for which it turned out he had a definite knack. The
intelligence he’d inherited from Blackjack—which his stepfather had always made him ashamed of showing—had helped him to trap more than one unwary rustler. Now that Summer was marrying some other man, his job was all he had.

And Blackjack had threatened to take it away if he wasn’t gone in twenty-four hours.

Billy couldn’t afford to lose the work that had given him back his self-respect and, more important, provided the income to support his son. Without that job, he might very well end up back here for good, in a town where he was—and always would be—”Bad” Billy Coburn.

But how could he leave? His mother was dying. He’d come home to Bitter Creek to make arrangements for her care and to find out whether his sister Emma might be willing to sell the ranch where they’d grown up, since he had no intention of ever living on the C-Bar again.