The Loner (3 page)

He’d considered explaining the situation to Blackjack and asking for more time to settle his affairs, but he didn’t want to end up beholden to a man he hated. Besides, he didn’t need help from anybody. He’d figure a way out of this mess on his own.

This sure as hell wasn’t the time to stir up trouble by getting involved with Summer Blackthorne again. He had to get away from her before he did something stupid that would make his life harder than it already was.

But he was finding it difficult to let her go, when she was holding him, touching him like she cared.

“What’s wrong?” Summer murmured, brushing at the frown between his eyes. Her fingertips haltingly caressed his cheek, then traced the shape of his mouth.

He had lowered his head to kiss her, their mouths only a breath apart, when he realized what he was doing. He caught her head forcibly between his hands. It was hard to breathe with the pain in his chest. He wanted her to go away and take all the hurt he was feeling with her.

“What do you want from me, Summer? A quick lay before you’re tied to some man your father handpicked for you? I’m not available.”

He saw the shock on her face, followed quickly by anger, as she shoved his hands away.

“How dare you! You know damn well—”

“Keep it down,” he said. “We don’t want your father or your fiancé to hear us arguing out here and get the wrong idea. Not that a few wrong ideas haven’t crossed my mind. And you seem pretty damn willing to indulge in—”

She swung at him with her open palm.

He caught her wrist long before the flat of her hand could reach his jaw. “You always were a spoiled brat. I see you haven’t changed.”

“You always know exactly which buttons to push,” she said furiously, jerking free of his grasp. “I don’t know why I let you provoke me.”

He kept his arms folded over his chest as the tears brimmed in her eyes.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” she said, her chin wobbling.

Billy bunched his fists under his armpits and pulled his arms tighter around his chest, resisting the urge to comfort her.

His whole body tensed as she laid her hands on his crossed arms, leaned up on tiptoe, and kissed the cheek
she’d almost slapped. “I’m sorry, Billy. I only want us to be friends again. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed having a friend to—”

“What about your fiancé? Isn’t he your friend?” Billy asked through tight jaws.

She sighed as she took a step back. “Geoffrey is—”

“What the hell is going on out here?”

Billy saw the wariness on Summer’s face as she turned and discovered her fiancé striding toward them. She scrubbed at her teary eyes and swiped her hands on her jeans as she said, “You should have stayed inside, Geoffrey.”

“I got worried when you were gone so long.”

Billy dropped his fists to his sides and widened his stance as Summer’s fiancé eyed him suspiciously. He kept his gaze on Summer, wondering how she was going to handle the situation. He didn’t want to fight, not on his first day back in town. But he wasn’t going to back down if the other man confronted him.

“Let’s go back inside,” Summer said as she slid her arm through Geoffrey’s and turned him back toward the bar.

“In a minute,” he said. “I have a few words to say to your friend.”

“Geoffrey, please—”

Billy’s teeth clamped over a growl as he watched the other man jerk himself free of Summer’s grasp.

Geoffrey marched over, jabbed Billy with a stiff finger and said, “I know who you are and what you are. Keep your hands off Summer. She belongs to me.”

Billy tamped down the urge to fight for the woman he loved. The only woman he would ever love. He glanced
at the baby sleeping in the cab of the pickup. What he wanted had to take second place now. He had to think of Will. He couldn’t afford to end up in jail for teaching this asshole the lesson he deserved.

“Geoffrey, please,” Summer said, tugging at his sleeve.

“Stay the hell out of this, Summer,” Geoffrey said, elbowing her backward.

Summer cried out in alarm as her heel slipped into a large pothole and she began to topple backward. Her arms windmilled in an effort to stay upright, but it was a losing battle. She cried out again—this time in pain—when she hit the ground.

Billy glared at Geoffrey, glanced at Will, and muttered, “To hell with it.”

He felt the pain all the way to his elbow when his fist landed satisfyingly on Geoffrey’s strong, aristocratic chin. The other man went down in a heap next to Summer.

Billy leaned over, gripped Summer’s hands, and pulled her carefully to her feet. “You all right?”

She avoided his eyes by dusting off her fanny and seemed more embarrassed than injured. “I’m fine.” She looked down at Geoffrey, who was out cold, and made a face. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Billy let go of her hands. “You’re right. I know better.” He shook his head in disgust. “I couldn’t help myself.” He gestured toward the fallen man and said, “If he’s what you want, Summer, help yourself. I’ve got to get home.”

“Billy…”

He was feeling sick inside, wondering what kind of trouble he’d made for himself, especially when Summer
clearly hadn’t appreciated the effort he’d made to defend her.

He slid across the hood of his truck without waiting for her to make excuses or explanations and dropped to the ground in front of the driver’s side door. He was inside and had the engine revved before she could say anything other than his name.

He leaned across the seat to look at her one last time over Will’s head and said, “Good-bye, Summer.”

He gunned the engine, anxious to be gone. All he had to do was pop the clutch, give it some gas, and he’d burn rubber out of here. Then he glanced down at his sleeping son.

He couldn’t afford to go tearing around town like some teenager. He was twenty-seven years old. He was a TSCRA field inspector—at least for the next twenty-four hours. And he was a father.

Billy let out the clutch and gave the truck enough gas to pull slowly and carefully onto the two-lane road that led home.

S
UMMER WAS BENT OVER
G
EOFFREY, WHO WAS
still out cold, when she heard her father mutter, “I should have known something like this would happen. That Coburn kid is pure-D trouble wherever he goes.”

She rose and faced her father in the blue neon light that reflected off the whitewashed adobe walls of the Armadillo Bar. “Then why did you send Geoffrey out here, Daddy?”

“He’s going to be your husband. He should be the one to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

“That no-account—”

“Stop right there,” Summer said, taking the two steps to bring her toe-to-toe with her father. “You of all people should know better than to call Billy names.”

She could feel the hesitation before he said, “Billy told me that you know about…that I’m not…that you’re…”

She’d never known her father to have difficulty speaking his mind. That he couldn’t even finish his sentence spoke volumes about how carefully he was treading to
spare her feelings. It was exactly why she hadn’t wanted him to know she knew the truth about her birth.

Because it would change everything.

She’d struggled for two years with the realization that her dearly beloved father wasn’t even related to her. She was neither fish nor fowl. Not a blood relative. Not adopted. She might be legally legitimate, since her parents had been married when she was born, but she hadn’t investigated, fearing what she would discover.

The one thing she’d ever wanted out of life was to be mistress of Bitter Creek. But how likely was that once she—and her father—acknowledged that she wasn’t even a real Blackthorne? It was far better not to know for sure what her status was. At least this way, she could pretend everything was all right, instead of knowing for certain that it wasn’t.

Regrets were useless now. It would be a relief to give up the burden of knowing such an awful secret. She and her father would both have to adjust to their new relationship. Whatever it was.

She looked up and said, “I know everything, Daddy. I have for a long time.”

He lifted a brow in question.

“Everything,” she repeated, meeting his gaze steadily. “That I’m not your daughter. And that Billy is your son.”

Blackjack heaved a gusty sigh, took off his hat, and plowed a rough hand through his silver-tipped black hair, before snugging the expensive Resistol down low on his forehead. “Dear God in heaven. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want things to change between us.”

He started to say something and stopped.

“Say it,” she urged. “Whatever it is, Daddy, I can handle it.”

“I wanted to protect you from the truth,” he said. “So much so that—”

“Daddy, I—”

“Shut up and listen,” he said. “The whole reason I’ve stayed married to your mother for the past two years is that she’s been blackmailing me, threatening to tell you the truth if I tried to leave her. If I’d known that both our secrets were out—that Billy’s my son, and that you’re not my daughter—I’d have divorced her faster than that,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of her nose.

“And married Lauren Creed?” Summer blurted.

“As long as this is a night for confessions, yes,” her father said. “I love Ren. I’ve loved her for as long as I can remember. Fate dealt us a bad hand. She ended up marrying Jesse Creed thirty-seven years ago, and I ended up marrying your mother. But Jesse’s been dead nearly four years… and I’m still not free.”

Summer pressed a fisted hand to her heart. She felt an actual physical ache in her chest at the thought of her father in love with someone besides her mother. Despite what he’d told her, she didn’t want her parents splitting up. A family in one piece—even if it showed dangerous signs of cracking—was better than a family broken apart.

“I thought you stayed married because Mom would get half—maybe even more than half—of everything in a divorce,” Summer said.

Blackjack huffed out a breath. “Two years ago I told her I didn’t give a damn, that I’d give her everything. That’s when she resorted to blackmail.”

Summer gasped, horrified at what she was hearing. It was unthinkable that her father had considered giving up Bitter Creek. His prize possession was a map of the original ranch boundaries drawn in 1864, which hung in a place of honor over the fireplace in the parlor. Each succeeding Blackthorne had purchased, procured, or, in some cases, purloined more land—including her father.

The immense boundaries had been redrawn over the past hundred and thirty-odd years to create an empire that ranged over eight hundred square miles, making Bitter Creek as large as some small northeastern states. She’d always believed her father loved Bitter Creek more than anything or anyone. Obviously, she’d been wrong.

“You love Ren that much?” she asked.

“More than life.”

“And you didn’t divorce Mom and marry Ren because—”

“Because I didn’t want you hurt.”

Summer stared at her father, not believing what it seemed he was saying. The ache in her chest was back. She’d never believed he could love her so much when she wasn’t even really his daughter. But here was proof that made her throat go tight and her nose sting with tears.

He’d been willing to sacrifice Bitter Creek to have Lauren Creed.
Yet he’d given up Ren because he’d wanted to ensure that Summer remained happily oblivious to the unhappy truth
. She was old enough now, and had made enough choices of her own, to realize the enormity of the gift he’d offered her.

“Daddy…” Her father’s face was blurred by tears as
he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight, rocking her from side to side.

“Everything’s going to be all right now, baby. You’ll be getting married and—”

“No, Daddy. I won’t.” Summer pushed at her father’s shoulders until he let her go. She tried to look him in the eyes, but the annoyance she saw there caused her to lower her gaze. “I can’t do it. I can’t marry Geoffrey.”

She glanced at her father’s face, which was set in angry lines. A tear dropped onto her cheek and slid down. “Please, Daddy—”

“Get rid of those tears,” he said, pulling a hanky from the back pocket of his Levi’s and offering it to her.

She’d learned very young that tears were effective when she wanted her way. But the days were long past when she wanted her father to see her breaking down in stressful situations. In the two years since she’d turned twenty-one she’d worked hard to have him consider her as someone capable of running Bitter Creek.

She’d hoped that by marrying she could convince Blackjack that she possessed the maturity and steadiness required of someone in control of a ranching empire as vast as the Bitter Creek Cattle Company.

But if her father divorced her mother, there might be no ranch left for her to run. So there was no reason to marry anymore except love. And she didn’t love Geoffrey … enough.

“You picked Geoffrey,” her father argued.

“As the best in a long line of prospective husbands you’ve thrown at me, Daddy,” she said, as she dabbed at her tears with his hanky.

“You told me you loved him.”