Wild Horses (3 page)

She turned away, toward the parking lot, hoping she looked bored, not as if she was blinking back the tears that prickled unexpectedly.

But he sensed her emotion. He always had. His low voice gentled. “Anyway, you'd always told me you'd never go back home again.”

That
was supposed to make her feel better?

Wade was glancing from Nora to Todd and back again. “Just to clarify...you guys dated?”

“Yes.” Todd let out a heavy sigh, as if the thought pained him. “For three years.”

“Right.” Wade glanced at Nora, one raised eyebrow signifying a whole lot of questions she'd have to answer later.
Then he turned back to Todd. “Well, we're hoping you could take a look at all these tools. If they can be repaired fairly cheaply, we'd like to do it. Otherwise, maybe you can point us to the nearest junkyard.”

Todd smiled. He was probably thrilled to get back to business and avoid further conversation with his crazy ex-girlfriend.

She didn't blame him. She must look a little wild right now. Between getting run over by wild horses last night and meeting Todd today, Nora was starting to feel like coming home to Benson had been an even worse idea than she'd feared.

“Why don't we get your truck unloaded and I'll take a look,” Todd said. The two men started toward the pickup, but Nora stayed where she was, studying the interior of the shop as if it mattered, trying to slow her pulse and gather her thoughts. The oily smell was actually kind of soothing. The smell of everyday reality. She breathed it in, hoping it would restore her sanity.

She heard Wade and Todd returning. Wade was saying something about trying to remove some rust. She forced herself to join them as they headed back to the truck again, trailing a few steps behind, so she wouldn't have to join their conversation. After a few miserable trips, they set the last of the tools down on the ground.

“Nice to meet you, Todd.” Wade shook her ex-boyfriend's hand. “Come on by the ranch if you want to go fishing sometime.” He turned to Nora. “You want to stay and talk with Todd for a bit? I can do a couple errands and then come back.”

“I'm ready to go now,” she said quickly. No way did she want to be left alone with Todd.

“Nora,
could
you stay a minute?” Todd fixed his green gaze on her, and she silently, sternly, forbade her knees from weakening. “It's been years. It would be great to catch up.”

Catch up?
As if they were old buddies who could just have a chat, share their latest news and then go on their way? As if there hadn't been emotions between them deeper than anything she'd ever known before?

“Wade and I have a lot of chores to do, so we should probably get going.” It wasn't a lie; their to-do list was easily several feet long and the day was nearly over.

“Tonight,” Todd said. “Can we meet for a drink?”

Nora glanced at Wade for some kind of rescue, but her brother just shrugged his shoulders in a singularly unhelpful way.

“Sure.” She sighed. So many years of thinking about Todd made it impossible to say no. She was still so full of questions. “I'll meet you at the Dusty Saddle. At eight.”

The Dusty Saddle was a dive bar on the edge of town. Not a place anyone would want to linger and a good way to keep their drink short. Which was perfect because seeing Todd again was wreaking havoc in her heart. Hell, the way she was feeling right now, she could down a beer in about thirty seconds flat. She'd fit right in at the Saddle.

“Sounds fine.” Todd smiled and she recognized the faint curl to his lips when he did. She used to tease him that he smiled as if he was in on some private joke. He'd always answered that it wasn't a joke—he was just smug because he knew he'd gotten the best girl
.
She wondered how he explained it nowadays.

“Okay,” she mumbled. “See you then.”

“I'll look forward to it.” Todd leaned down and grabbed a couple of their dilapidated chain saws. He held them as if they weighed nothing. “See you around, Wade. I'll give you a call with an estimate. And I'd like to take you up on that fishing invite soon.” He turned and started toward the back of the shop.

Nora watched him walk into the shadowy interior, trying to ignore the way his worn jeans fit him perfectly, and the slight swagger in his stride that she didn't remember from when she'd known him before. It took effort to turn away, but she followed Wade to the truck, her brain tumbling like a clothes dryer, each random thought twisting and turning as it cycled around. And then one image came to the surface, clearly separate from the emotional tangle. The image of Todd, walking away just now. It wasn't a swagger that she'd seen. His footsteps were uneven. Todd walked with a limp.

And then she knew, with a thud in her stomach, why the voice of the masked man had sounded so familiar. It had been Todd's voice in the dark last night. It was Todd who'd chased her and grabbed her arm and thrown her phone. Todd Williams was the masked man who'd freed the wild horses.

CHAPTER THREE

N
ORA
LEANED
OUT
of the truck window, staring at the blue-gray blur of sagebrush rushing by, letting the hot afternoon breeze snap her hair in every direction. It was a good thing Wade was at the wheel, because her hands were shaking and her stomach heaved.

Anger was bubbling inside her like lava, flowing over her initial surprise and leaving sharp edges and disjointed thoughts in its wake. Todd had freed the horses. He was the idiot who'd terrified her in the dark. He'd almost gotten her killed. He lived here, in Benson. Her mind jumped between topics, between their past and the present, as she tried to make some kind of sense of what she'd learned.

Wade stopped the truck in front of their shabby ranch house. Nora stared at the peeling paint and sagging porch, seeing it with new eyes. Todd's eyes. She'd always hid her impoverished, messed-up past from him. But soon he would know. Moving back here and facing that past had been hard. It would be harder with Todd Williams in town to witness her struggles.

A shutter banged in the late-afternoon breeze. The amount of work the house needed was overwhelming. And when you combined that with what the ranch required, it was mind-boggling. Luckily Wade was fearless. Nora wasn't sure she'd ever take on a project as large as revitalizing this ranch on her own. But the impossible nature of it seemed to spur Wade on and give him a focus as he got used to life outside the army, life away from war. And for that she was grateful. So grateful she'd offered to help him out. To move back to the childhood home she'd vowed to never set foot in again.

Now she wished that she'd let him return home on his own. That she'd just offered financial support—a check in the mail from someplace far away from Todd.

She realized, suddenly, that Wade hadn't moved, either. They were sitting in the truck in silence—except for the noise of Wade's fingers tapping restlessly on the steering wheel.

“You're angry.” She stared at him in surprise. Wade rarely got angry with her. Or anyone.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Her brother looked straight ahead, not at her.

“Why?”

“Because you never told me about him.” He turned to face her then, his dark brown eyes narrowed in frustration. “He dumped you, didn't he? Right after college. Right before you took me with you to Nevada.”

“So?” She didn't want to talk about that time. Didn't want to remember how lost she'd felt. “It was none of your concern.”

“Yes, it was. I'm your brother. We lived together. You think I didn't notice how sad you were? That I didn't wonder why you got up every morning with red eyes?”

“You could have asked.” She sounded like the sullen teenager that he'd been back then. But she was ashamed at the memories—at the way she'd totally fallen apart.

“I
did
ask, Nora! You told me you had allergies, but I never bought that. You wouldn't choose to be a plant biologist if you had hay fever. I never could figure out what was wrong.”

Nora smiled faintly at his logical conclusion. “I didn't know you were worried.”

“I heard you crying. A lot. I thought maybe it was all the stuff that was happening with Dad. Or having to take care of me.”

She turned in her seat to face him then, and touched his shoulder gently. “I
never
minded taking care of you.”

“I just worried that...well...” He glanced away for a moment. “I was a brat.”

“You were a teenager, and I took you away from your hometown, so of course you acted out. But you were
my
brat, you know?” She reached over and ruffled his short hair. “You were my family.”

He glared at her, refusing to be teased out of his frustration. “Then, you should have told me what was really going on.”

He was probably right. But she didn't want to admit it. “I guess I figured my little brother didn't need to know the details of my love life.”

“A three-year relationship is more than a detail, Nora. And it might have explained a lot. About how you were.”

She didn't want to talk about those dark days. “I was
fine
.” She glared at Wade, daring him to challenge her lie.

Her brother just shook his head.

“Okay, I wasn't fine,” she admitted. “But I was embarrassed that I was such a mess. Plus, I didn't think you'd care that your boring older sister got dumped.”

“I did care. I still do.” Wade glanced at her, then away again. “I've noticed that you never go out with anyone for long. Is Todd the reason for that?”

“No!” He'd put into words what worried her, but accepting that, saying it out loud, would make it real. She refused to be that pathetic. “I guess I never told you about Todd because I wanted to keep him separate from the rest of my life, you know? Because of Dad and Arch and Blake.”

Wade was silent for a moment, fingers drumming again. “So you fell in love with pretty boy there, but never told him where you were from or what you'd been through. Or about how you were taking care of me?”

“Trust me, he's not pretty. Not to me, at least, not anymore.” Saying it out loud was the first step to believing it. “But yes, I fell in love. And I never told him anything about our family.”

“I don't know much about relationships, sis, but I know that's not a very good foundation for one.” Wade shook his head and looked at her with dismay.

He was right. She'd been ridiculously private. Love couldn't thrive with so many secrets. “I didn't want him to see me the way everyone else always had, as poor Nora Hoffman from the crazy family. College was a chance to just be me, without all that baggage.”

“I guess it makes sense, in a twisted kind of way.” He gave her that dismayed look again. “And you broke up because...”

“After college he wanted to work in the Amazon rain forest. To stop the deforestation.”

“Why didn't you go with him? It sounds like something that would've been right up your alley.”

She remembered how much she'd wanted to. How her sorrow over losing Todd had been mixed with jealousy and regret and resentment. “I didn't go because of money. Those jobs pay nothing. The only reason Todd could go was because his family is rich and he didn't need to work. He could afford a job like that. I couldn't. I needed to be practical.”

“And support me.” He looked grim. “Your baggage.”

“No!” She smacked him then, lightly, on the shoulder. Like she used to when they were kids. “You weren't the reason I didn't go, Wade. I couldn't have survived on the tiny stipend they were offering. No one could. Plus, I had that great fellowship at the University of Nevada for my graduate work. It made sense to accept it, and I was happy to take you with me. You needed to get out of Benson.”

“You saved me, you know. If you hadn't done that, I'd probably be hiding out in Mexico with our brothers right now, doing God knows what.”

It would have broken her heart if he'd become like them. “You were always a good kid, Wade. You would have found your way even if I hadn't stepped in.”

“But I
wasn't
finding my way. I was stealing cars. The one I got caught with? It wasn't the first.”

Tension crept up Nora's neck, and all the aches from her fall last night started to throb. “I didn't know. But I'm glad it was your last.”

“Me, too. Like I said, you saved me.”

She'd never heard her brother speak so emotionally. And it gave her the chance to say what she'd wanted to ever since he'd come home from war just weeks ago. “I'm proud of you, you know. So proud of what you did in Afghanistan. And of what you're trying to do here, with the ranch.”

“It's nothing.” His expression changed, snapped shut almost as clearly as if he'd slammed a door in her face. It happened every time she brought up the war.

“It's
not
nothing! It takes guts to come back to Benson. I wouldn't have—”

“Except I asked you to,” he finished. He looked straight at her then. “You know I really appreciate this, right? You've always been there for me, and here you are again.”

“I
want
to be here. I missed you while you were away. And, coincidentally, I'd just got the contract to do this plant study, so I was planning to be in the area anyway.” It was a lie—but just a small one. She'd found the job
after
Wade had asked her to come home. He didn't need to know that.

He also didn't need to know how worried she'd been—and still was. She'd read the news articles about combat veterans feeling lost once they got home. Ex-soldiers turning to drugs, becoming homeless or even committing suicide. And all her old protective instincts had kicked in. No way would she let any of that happen to Wade.

So here she was. And if this ranch was his dream, then she'd do anything she could to help it be a success. She'd even face Todd Williams tonight in a bar. Hopefully it would give her some closure—enough peace of mind that when she saw him around town it would simply be like seeing any other person she used to know.

Wade reached for the door handle. “
And
I think that's enough heartfelt discussion for today. If my buddies in my platoon were here right now, they'd never let me live this conversation down.”

Nora laughed. “Well, just to make them
really
cringe... I love you.”

He didn't actually cringe, but he winced a little. Then he smiled at her. “Back atcha, sis.”

“Come to the bar with me tonight?”

It was Wade's turn to laugh. “You mean front row for the awkward show as you reunite with your ex? No thanks.”

Nora's smile thinned. “Trust me, there will be no reuniting.”

“Good.” Wade elbowed her gently in the upper arm. “If he tries anything, kick his ass for me?”

She was tempted to tell Wade what Todd
had
done. That he'd stolen horses and almost killed her in the process. But it wasn't Wade's job to fight her battles. Resolve had her sitting up straighter. Yes. She
would
kick his ass. Maybe not with her fists, but certainly with her words. With her attitude. With all the fear and outrage that had kept her awake last night, haunted by the sounds of the horses' hooves above her head. “Will do.”

“Excellent. Just don't drink too much. And if you do, call me and I'll come get you.”

“Thanks.” Nora didn't mention that she no longer owned a cell phone, courtesy of Todd, the masked man. Anxiety had her breath catching. She'd witnessed a crime but hadn't reported it. Didn't that make her guilty, too?

But she hadn't been able to bring herself to report it. She'd walked by the mustangs every workday for the past couple weeks and seen them listless under the hot sun. She'd been disturbed by their misery, but she'd done nothing. She might hate Todd's methods, but she couldn't fault his reasons.

The problem was, during all the years she'd raised Wade, she'd preached honesty. She'd made sure he understood how important it was to obey laws and rules and not participate in their family's criminal lifestyle. How could she explain to him that she was choosing to overlook something illegal?

Frustration fueled her anger further. Todd Williams was pure trouble. It was telling that the moment he reentered her life, he put her in this kind of dilemma.

She shoved open her door and jumped out of the truck. Reaching into the back, she grabbed the rope they'd used to tie down the broken tools. “I'll bring this back to the barn.”

“I'll take it,” Wade offered. “Go get ready for your date.”

“It's
not
a date!”

He took the rope from her hand, laughter making him look younger than he had in a while. “It's my duty, as your brother, to tease you. Now go shower.”

She must really look bad if he was shooing her off to get cleaned up. “Thanks.” She turned and headed for the house.

Inside, she went straight to the bathroom. Caught in the mirror, her grim expression made her face look different. It belonged to someone older. Someone angrier. And dirtier. Grease coated her hands, and black finger marks were smeared across her forehead. Her jeans were more brown than blue and her T-shirt had a cobweb down one side. Not the look she'd envisioned for herself when she'd imagined seeing Todd again.

Staring at her reflection, she traced the vertical crease between her brows and the frown lines around her mouth, leaving trails of black grease behind. It looked like war paint. Which was fitting. Todd, the masked man, was unmasked, and he would get a lot more than a beer when he met her at the Dusty Saddle tonight.