When the Dust Settles Read online

“Yes, honey,” he said gruffly as he ground into me, deep, increasing his rhythm, stroking me faster, his breath stopping and starting.

  “I like it like this.” The words tumbled out of me as I came over his fingers and wrist. “I love it like this.”

  Chapter 6

  I WOKE up in the morning, sore everywhere, but it was amazing, the change to my outlook when I lifted my head up off Mac’s chest to look down into his gorgeous eyes.

  “Yeah, all right,” I allowed, grinning at him. “This is the best way to start a day ever.”

  And he kissed me, morning breath and all, and even better, hugged me tight to his heart and buried his face in my hair.

  “Sunday around six I need you there when I come in from the stockyard.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “You swear?”

  He was worried that away from him I would change my mind about us, and that was a slice of heaven right there because it was me who mattered and that was brand sparkling new.

  “Yes, baby, I’ll be there.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s good. I will most certainly be your baby.”

  “So tell me, where’s your family?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted to know.”

  He brushed my hair back from my face; it was already getting to be a habit of his, even in so short a time. “When I told everyone at home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that I was gay, they wasted no time in throwing me off the ranch.”

  I drew him into my arms and squeezed him tight, because what words could I offer him that would come close to helping.

  “I suspect,” he sighed, cuddling tight, “that if my mother were alive, that would not have been the case, but she passed when I was ten, and that was the last we saw of my father’s heart. I think he buried it with her.”

  “Jesus, Maclain, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Sheridan Gentry has five other sons to take care of him, so he ain’t missing me.”

  “I would,” I blurted out, tipping his head back to kiss him. “Miss you.”

  It was scary how ready we both were to belong to another person, to start a relationship. It was like we’d both been waiting for the other to notice that forward, together, was the place we both wanted to go.

  “Well, what I’m hoping is that we’ll get to where missing me will never cross your mind because you can’t even imagine letting me go at all.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about us getting there.”

  His smile was wicked. “Well, well, now, ain’t we a pair, gettin’ attached so fast.”

  Fast was an understatement, so the time apart when Everett picked me up to take me back to the ranch was probably a good thing.

  AS EVERETT’S truck sped away, everything I’d thought about just hours before, how we should handle things, how we should keep things under wraps until we made concrete decisions about our future… seemed stupid. I didn’t want to pin Mac down, but I realized in the whirlwind of activity that was my leaving that I hadn’t actually gotten around to asking him what he did or didn’t want. I’d assumed things, and that was never good.

  “You forget something?” Zach called over to me as I walked back past where all the men and guests were sitting down to breakfast. I hadn’t been hungry, and since Everett wanted to get back to his family, we had skipped the meal to leave for the Red. But it turned out I wasn’t quite ready to go, and I made Everett stop his truck and trailer so I could get out and run back to Mac, who hadn’t moved from where he was when I left him not ten minutes prior.

  He was still standing there, glowering, arms crossed, brows furrowed, a study in irritation with maybe even some anger thrown in for good measure.

  Darting over, big smile on my face, I stopped directly in front of him and slipped my hand around the back of his neck, massaging gently. “Hi,” I greeted, as though I wasn’t insane and wasn’t right back after barely being gone.

  I had no idea his glower could get any darker. “What’re you doing?”

  I slipped my right hand over his hip. “Remember when I was leaving and told you that we should probably keep this to ourselves?”

  “I seem to recall that,” he said coolly, his tone as frosty as his gaze.

  “Well, I was trying to think about you and how private you are and how maybe you didn’t want everyone knowing your business, but I realized that you could have taken that to mean that I didn’t want everyone to know.”

  He grunted, but I saw a glimmer of warmth start to infuse the quicksilver of his eyes. I was definitely seeing some thaw.

  “So I came back to tell you, Maclain Gentry,” I said as I eased his head down even as I lifted for his mouth, “that I want everyone to fuckin’ know about us.”

  The kiss I gave him was filled with longing, but more importantly, hope. I’m sure it also left no doubt in anyone’s mind that Mac was very much with me. Taking a step back from him, I was very pleased when he followed, not wanting to sever the contact.

  “Turns out I suck at keeping secrets,” I told him, smiling up into eyes that were no longer sad but heated pools of molten silver.

  “That’s good,” he agreed, sighing deeply, pulling the brim of his hat back down low. “I’m the same, and as you know already, a bit too possessive for most people.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  “No, you ain’t, not at all.”

  “You’ll miss me, right?”

  “You have no idea.”

  I was smug as I walked away, and when I waved from the truck, he was waiting to wave back. It was nice. A man who could show he was invested…. Very nice.

  The ride back to the Red Diamond was a bore because Everett didn’t want to talk, he simply concentrated on the road, watching for state troopers and scaring me into ordering him to slow the fuck down. I didn’t want me, him, and Juju to end up splattered all over the highway.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” I groused.

  “It was me or Stef,” he said, clipping his words. “And have you ever seen Stef drive a truck and trailer?” He raised his eyebrows and I chuckled. “Terrifying just don’t do that situation justice.”

  “No, I bet not.”

  “And Rand woulda been madder than a peeled rattler if I let that happen.”

  Possibly. “Well, if you could slow down just a bit, I’d appreciate it.”

  He did so without any further pestering, and so in appreciation of that, when we got to the Red, instead of making him take the time to drive me up the long road to the house, I told him I’d unload Juju and ride her to where my truck and trailer were parked.

  “Thanks, Glenn,” he said sincerely, giving me a wide smile. “It’s my first baby, you know, so… all I’m wanting to do is stay home with both her and my wife.”

  I nodded, and as I led my girl out of the trailer, before I could saddle up, Everett took hold of my shoulder.

  “Ev?”

  He took a breath. “I just want you to know that Mac is a real good man, and I ain’t never seen him chase no tail.”

  I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that. “Okay.”

  “You and him.” He stopped and thought a second. “I can see that.”

  He could? “You can?”

  “I reckon so. He’s scary and mean, and you’re kind and soft-spoken like Stef. Y’all will balance each other out real nice.”

  He thought I was kind? “Everett, when have you ever known me to be kind?”

  His scowl was funny. “You take care of all them orphans that work for you up at The Bronc, I watched you carry Bella three miles through the brush when she got out that time and tangled with them coyotes, and you ain’t never got no hurtful word for no one but members of your own family.”

  I smiled at him, overwhelmed by how he saw me and how maybe I should start seeing myself. Perhaps I was more of a nurturer than I realized. There could be more of my mother in me than I ever suspected.

  “And everyone knows the only people you can complain on is your own.�
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  “Yeah.”

  “So if you end up on the ranch, living on the other side of Tyler’s old place down by the creek… that’d be just fine,” he finished, offering me his hand.

  Amazing how people could surprise you.

  IT WAS almost two when Juju and I came cantering up the drive. She was happy to be out of the trailer and I was just happy, period. The stitches in my side hurt a bit, a twinge now and then, but when Mac had checked it, there was no redness or any signs of infection. Rand had done a really good job, and the hug I gave him when I left—which startled the hell out of him—was my thank-you.

  “Don’t—” He coughed. “—stay away so long, all right? I’d like to see you some.”

  “Yessir,” I teased, and he did a really odd thing and put his hand on my cheek and studied my face. “Rand?”

  “Just—come around.”

  I heard him that time, because I’d believed in Mac the night before when he told me how things really were. People actually wanted me around, so maybe I could quit being a prick and thinking everyone was only saying what they were saying because they thought they had to, or because they felt sorry for me. My father didn’t give a good goddamn about me, but that was not a surprise. To have the others care was more than I would have ever imagined possible.

  So as I came up on the house, I was in a really good mood but not blinded with happiness enough to not find the two unfamiliar cars parked in front of the house odd.

  That made no sense.

  Most parked cars would be down by the stables, or down at the front office, or even farther out by Mac’s place if someone came to call on him—and none of that would not have given me pause. But here in front of the big house, where no random visitors ever came, that you had to specifically take the turn at the fork to get to, where I’d only ever expect Stef’s car or Rand’s truck, cars parked here would mean someone there to specifically see one of them, and while it was possible—Stef did have friends in town—it simply wasn’t likely. In fact, normally when Rand was on a drive, that was when Stef took the opportunity to get off the ranch and visit Charlotte or other friends scattered across the country. As I ran through different scenarios in my head, I realized he could have been having company, and maybe someone had driven in from the airport in Lubbock to visit him.

  But the cars weren’t rentals, and neither of them was the vehicle belonging to Rand’s mother, May, because I knew the scary pink Jeep Wrangler on sight.

  I was probably overthinking it. Stef certainly must know all kinds of people I didn’t have any clue about. But then I saw Bella outside pacing on the porch and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  What was the dog doing outside?

  That thought came from being brought up on a ranch. Nothing ever changed, and everyone got a weird, ridiculous hypersensitivity to anything out of the ordinary. Like, why was the Mullins boy driving so fast? Or did the Ballards get a new truck? Or, like now… why the hell was there a Toyota Highlander and a Prius—of all the cars on the planet—in Rand’s driveway? Vehicles out on the ranch were all American-made—except for Stef’s car—as well as everywhere in the county, and always had been, I was sure. My own truck had come over with the Vikings, a hand-me-down from my father I hadn’t bothered to replace yet, as it still had some life left in the ancient engine. But imports in Rand’s driveway were strange. Again cars at the main house just made no sense.

  Maybe I was being stupid, but still, who would be visiting Stef in the late afternoon on a Saturday when all the men who would normally be on the ranch, including Rand, were gone?

  For a second I thought maybe it was a robbery, because maybe Stef wasn’t there either, but his new Volvo S60 was in the driveway, so I knew he was most likely there, plus, again, the dog was there, and Stef was rarely without her.

  But… the dog was outside. What the hell?

  So instead of going up to the stairs, I rode Juju up behind the thick hedge to the left that had been planted to camouflage the concrete bunker that hid the sewage tank, and twisted her reins in the branches to keep her from drawing attention.

  I darted around the west end of the porch and went to the far side window on the left, where I was immediately joined by a whining Bella.

  Kneeling down, I pet her and ordered her to be quiet, a command she knew because it was how Rand trained the dogs to either herd the cattle or move between them silently. So she understood me, which was lucky considering what I saw inside the house.

  Stef was in the living room, Wyatt asleep in his arms, standing with a young guy, maybe nineteen or twenty, bookish, in slacks and a button-down; a girl who looked about the same age wearing Daisy Dukes and a fuchsia crop top that showed off a great tan, gorgeous abs, and a belly piercing; and two guys who were both older and bigger. One of them had on a camouflage baseball cap and a denim shirt the sleeves had been ripped off of, and the other was in a straw cowboy hat and a gray T-shirt about two sizes too small that showed off every muscle in his abdomen, chest, and arms. He was taller and bulkier than me, but I wasn’t worried about that. It was baseball cap guy who gave me pause. He was the one with the gun.

  I was too afraid to leave Stef and Wyatt alone to ride back to get whoever was down by the stockyard, and sending Bella to find Everett might have worked if this were a movie, but it certainly was not. I figured once I got the gun, the others would scatter. I wanted them out of the house and away from Rand’s family. We could find everyone later; the county wasn’t that big.

  I debated going around through the kitchen, but the screen door on the back creaked loudly and the boards on the deck squeaked. Since they would all see me coming through the front screen door or any of the many windows that led in from the porch, instead, since all the windows were open—the English oaks around the house shaded it well, so even in high summer, it was easily twenty degrees cooler under them—I jumped off the porch and darted around the left side of the house, that which faced the hills and the wind turbines, to the window in the first of two sitting rooms, the one that had been converted into Stef’s office a few years back.

  Making a short jump up for the ledge, I grabbed on to it, lifted myself, put my feet on the molding that ran around each wall of the house for decoration, and balanced there. It wasn’t hard to move the screen, simply lever it up and push in and place it gently on the floor inside. Then I hoisted myself up and folded over, pushed the screen to the side, and wheelbarrowed my way in on my hands until I could slowly, gently put my feet on the floor. Two years ago I wouldn’t have been able to get in quietly. I’d been heavier, carrying a lot more muscle, and wasn’t half as flexible then. But now lighter, more limber, I did it easily.

  Leaning out, whipping my Stetson out onto the grass, I gave Bella a harshly whispered order. “Get inside, girl. Get in!”

  She lost her mind.

  “The fuck was that?” I heard someone ask.

  “It’s the stupid dog he put outside.”

  Slinking against the wall, still hearing Bella howling outside, making enough noise for them to worry someone would hear her, one of them finally suggested what I wanted.

  “I’m gonna shoot that dog.”

  “Oh no, please don’t,” Stef begged.

  “She’s makin’ a terrible racket.”

  “She just wants to see me.”

  “Well, I’m gonna put a bullet in her head if she don’t stop.”

  Reaching the open doorway of Stef’s office, I leaned out into the short hall that connected it to the second small sitting room. Moving quickly, I slipped into that room and climbed on top of the couch, onto the coffee table, and then walked along the chaise to the wall. I’d learned early in an old house with wood floors that the best way to not make noise was to get on top of things already sitting heavy on the boards.

  Leaning only inches out that door into the living room, I could see reflections in the glass of the grandfather clock against the wall to my right. When I turned my head back and forth, I co
uld see everyone.

  They were all clustered more toward the back of the house, almost to the kitchen, which made sense. Whoever these people were—burglars, kidnappers, God knew—they’d invaded the home and were smart enough to want Stef away from the front porch where they’d thought anyone driving up would have seen him. It was also why they hadn’t seen me on horseback coming up the drive. The issue was, there was no regular traffic on the road to the house, no one to notice them. No one but me.

  “Mr. Joss, I’m so sorry,” Button-down lamented, trying to take a step forward, but the girl yanked on his arm. “I’m so stupid.”

  “You ain’t stupid,” Straw Hat told him. “You went along ’cause you knew nobody would get hurt.” He turned back to Stef. “And nobody will as long as you listen and do exactly what we say.”

  “Just shoot him and take the baby,” Daisy Dukes said flatly.

  “No!” Button-down was aghast.

  “Not kill him, honey, just shoot him in the leg so we can take the boy. That’ll be a lot easier and we can keep him quiet real easy.”

  Stef clutched Wyatt tight, and I reached behind me and took hold of the antique fireplace poker standing in the holder beside the leather tufted chair near a decorative antique writing desk that as far as I’d ever seen, no one used. The house had been built pre-central heat and air, and since Rand had never converted it, there was a fireplace in every room but the kitchen and dining room downstairs, and the master upstairs. It was a sweet house full of quaint charm that Stef balked at updating, keeping Rand’s plans for an open-flow renovation on ice. So at the moment, it was still a box inside with smaller rooms and lots of walls to hide behind. Since the setup was serving me well at the moment, I was thankful for Stef’s sense of tradition.

  “I think we should all go into the kitchen,” Baseball Cap commented. “I want us right at the back door in case we have to make a run for it.”

  “All right,” Straw Hat agreed.

  “What is this room over here? Did you check all these when we came in?” Baseball Cap asked as I retreated a bit, seeing him coming my way.