Busting Loose (11 page)

He didn't try to convince her this time, just helped her out to the car and opened the door for her.

“Thanks, cutie.” She kissed his lips lightly. “I'll see you Monday.”

He nodded.

She waited, but he didn't add anything to the conversation, so she got in and started the car up. As her headlights flashed against the side of his house, illuminating the shirtless, shoeless Morgan in the process, she had to fight against the urge to throw the car in PARK, toss herself out, and beg him to let her stay the night.

Stupid. Just stupid. She was starting to sound as mentally dramatic as sweet, stupid Trixie, the reformed prostitute of
The Tantalizing and the Tempting
. And that, for the love of God, was unacceptable.

“Milton, we've got to get ourselves together.”

He whined in the backseat, pissed at her for the screen she'd put up between the front and back seats to keep him from crawling up to her lap. Morgan had lectured her on the safety of pets in the front seat. And since he was attached to her at the hip, the screen was the only way to keep him back.

“Get over it, bud. It's safer back there, for both of us.”

He whined more, snorting a little and sounding like an upset potbelly piglet.

“Nothing doing, bud. I'll spoil you to the end of the earth with sweater vests and dog booties. But you're not riding in my lap while I drive.”

He settled down as they turned into the M-Star drive a few minutes later. Convenient, really, how close Morgan was.

Yes. Convenient. Booty calls were convenient, weren't they? That's how she could look at this. She was temporary, and he was a guy. Guys liked sex. Ergo, this would work out in the end. He was a wonderful man, and he'd find a wonderful woman someday and they'd have cute kids and raise a litter of whatever the pet of the week was. But she was headed back to LA, back to the life she knew, back to the only one that made sense.

She pulled up next to the garage, where her apartment was, and climbed out. Milton scrambled out the back when she opened the door and sprinted off to relieve himself. While he sniffed and marked and did his manly leg-lifting thing, she glanced around the ranch.

This didn't make sense for her. She wasn't raised to want this. She was raised to want what she'd had before.

So she'd fulfill whatever obligation she had here. Stick around long enough to annoy Peyton into ripping her hair out. And when she was ready, she'd go back.

Her shoulder blades itched, and she knew it wasn't from her bra clasp . . . which was still somewhere on Morgan's floor. She brushed the feeling off and clapped a hand on the side of her thigh. “Milton, come. Mama needs to go for a quick ride.”

B
ea watched as Trace walked his horse back into the stables and started the process of unsaddling, hanging tack, and grooming the big gelding. After a quick hesitation, she stepped into the dim lighting of the stable. It was rare enough for anyone to see Bea in the stables as it was, rarer still in the daylight with other people around. Witnesses.

As she passed Lover Boy's stall, he poked his head out and reached for her with his muzzle. She paused and gave him a caress. But when he got feisty, nibbling at her arm, she pushed back. He was begging to be let out, to go for a run. Like the one they'd taken last night. “No, not today.”

“Today? That one's always trying to take a chunk outta me.”

She swallowed a gasp and turned to see Tiny, one of the older hands, watching her. “I didn't know anyone else was in here.”

“Oh, someone's always around.” He watched her quietly for a moment. “You usually aren't, though. Did you need something?”

“No.” Too fast. “No,” she said slower. “I'm fine. Am I in your way?”

He shook his head, reminding her of a saying she'd heard before. Men will never use ten words when one will do.

“I was just . . . looking for my brother,” she tried again. Lame. Very lame. But something. She was losing her bullshit skills.

Tiny angled his head deeper back. “With Lad.”

“Of course.” She stepped away, ignoring Lover Boy when he nickered and reached for her again.
Sorry, boy. Later.

Trace's back was the first thing she saw, then Lad's bent neck. She watched her brother's slow, even strokes over the horse's flanks and sides as he brushed away sweat and dirt from their early morning workout. They were practically a set, those two. She'd watched them more than once from the main house, though she'd have denied it if anyone caught her. Her brother was good, damn good, on a horse. His time riding the rodeo circuit had been a waste, as far as she was concerned. Busting broncs and riding for eight was a true waste of his true talents on a horse. At M-Star, he was a fantastic partner to Peyton's horse sense and business mind.

“Slumming in the stables?” he asked without looking up from his task.

“Oh, you know me. Bored, looking for trouble.” Give 'em what they expect. Then they never look deeper. She stepped up on an overturned bucket—balanced with experience and skill on her high wedges—and watched the horse's front legs. One was steady on the ground, the other bent just slightly, as if the horse was hip-shot like a cocky man. Those legs were unbelievably delicate looking to carry such weight. Not just the horse's own, but another two hundred plus in rider and tack. It always amazed her how perfectly created the animals were to their given task.

“Where's your bodyguard?”

“My what?” She snapped out of watching the gelding's legs and looked at Trace. He was looking at her now from identical eyes to hers and Peyton's. The one physical trait all three of them shared.

“Milton.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “I dropped him off with Emma and Seth after breakfast. When I left the big house, he and Seth were in a game of hide-and-seek.” She grinned to think about it. “Milton was winning.”

“No kidding.” Trace smiled at the mention of his son. He was a fantastic father. And though Bea didn't begin to understand kids, especially babies, she could recognize when a child was well-loved and lucky.

Must be nice, to have a father so devoted to you and your childhood. And that was pathetic, envying Seth because her brother loved him and spent time with him.
Grow up, Bea.

Trace finished grooming while she watched. Neither spoke. After he stepped out of the box, handing Lad a treat from his pocket, he brushed his hands and hooked an arm around her shoulders. “Take a walk?”

“Sure.” Anything to keep her from breaking out her phone and texting Morgan. She needed a bit of distance there.

He led her out back, behind the stable and workout areas toward the hay fields. They stared for a minute, their backs to the main property, looking out at the vast landscape. No other buildings in sight from this angle.

“Still shocked it's ours?”

“Hmm.” She leaned her head on his shoulder a second. “It should have been Peyton's.”

“So why don't you just give her your share?”

She huffed out a laugh. “I'm selfish, remember?”

Trace squeezed her arm.

Another minute passed.

“Come riding with me.”

“You just finished,” she reminded him.

“Finished a workout. I meant a ride. A nice, lazy one. We can give a few of the mares a good stretch.”

She chewed her lip.

“I'll saddle your horse for you. All you have to do is go change.” He glanced down at her, as if seeing her for the first time. “You're wearing jeans.”

She rolled her eyes. “I wear jeans often.”

“No, but those are real jeans. Not fancy ones with glitter or artistically torn holes or ones so tight you might split a seam bending over or whatever. Are those . . . are those Wranglers?” His voice held a hint of mocking awe.

She stepped away and punched his shoulder. He let her. “Bite me. I'm sick of my nice clothes being ruined out here when I walk around.”

He watched her, inviting her to elaborate.

“Why didn't you offer me one of the geldings to ride?”

His brows rose. “Like who?”

“Like Lover Boy.” What perverse impulse was leading her down this rabbit hole?

Trace shook his head. “He's too high-strung. I mean, he's not impossible to control, but not for a novice like you. One of the older mares to start.”

Jesus. Next he'd put her up on a swayback carnival pony for toddlers. “I can handle him.”

“It's not a matter of will, but skill.” He shrugged a shoulder. “You haven't been on a horse in years, right? I barely remember Daddy ever setting you up in the saddle. It wouldn't be responsible to—”

“I ride every night.”

His satisfied smile told her everything she needed to know.

She screwed her eyes shut and turned to look back out over the hay. Why, oh God why had she taken the bait? Trace was always the best at baiting her. Better even than Peyton.

“Bea-Bea,” he said softly. She shook her head. “Bea, don't be childish. Look at me.”

She ignored him.

“Come riding with me. In the light. Go get your boots on and let's just go for a good hard run.”

She itched for it. Her 3 a.m. run the night before had only taken the edge off her restlessness. “No, thank you. How did you know?”

“I saw you, a few months back. I'd been wondering who had been using my tack, since it had been moved from where I left it the day before. Didn't figure it was you, though.”

“Peyton is too small.”

He laughed at that. “True. But how about we get you your own?”

The idea of her own tack, her own saddle, both thrilled and terrified her. It was so . . . open. So personal, but so obvious. Like a big neon sign saying
I've been faking it.
“I don't know.”

“You can keep it at your place, bring it out when you wanna ride at night.” He hugged her. “I don't know why you feel like you need to keep this a secret.”

“I don't want to get into it with Peyton. She'd wonder why I don't help out around here.”

“Why don't you?”

She elbowed him in the side, satisfied with the
oof
sound he made.

He rubbed a hand over the area. “You're still vicious, Bea-Bea. But I love you anyway.”

She went into his hug, happy to have that small weight off her chest.

“You should tell her,” he murmured. “She'll want to know, and she'll want to talk about it.”

“Maybe.” No. “It's not a big deal.”

The small hitch in his breathing told her he disagreed, but he kept mum.

For the moment, it just felt good to have her brother with her, and no secrets between them.

 

Morgan laid out the condiments on the table of his mother's dining room. They were eating in the sacred room not out of a wish for formality, but for simple size. The kitchen table didn't offer enough seating for his parents, him, his sister, and her family. As they'd added people to the mix, they'd been forced into the rarely used dining room out of sheer necessity. And his mother's sewing machine had found its way into his sister's old room, now converted into her woman's cave, as Cynthia called it.

“No placemats, Morgan,” she called from the kitchen. “Last time the kids just fought over who got what color. Not worth it.”

The kids. He smiled a little, then fought back his own pang of longing. It wasn't worth thinking about. One day, he'd have kids of his own, and he'd be the one rolling his eyes while they fought over stupid crap, like which placemat to take and who wasn't touching who on car rides.

He tried to imagine Bea as a mother. His mind sketched her in a typical outfit of his sister's: loose jeans, one of her husband's T-shirts, and her hair in a haphazard ponytail that usually looked like it was one good head shake away from falling.

Then he smiled. Nope. He knew better. Even at the height of difficult child rearing, Bea would be fashionable. Or as fashionable as practicality allowed. It was just her thing. Some might call it high maintenance. Hell, Bea would likely claim being high maintenance with pleasure. But he just considered it one of her quirks.

He liked her quirks. They made her who she was.

His mother brushed past his stone-still frame and set a basket of dinner rolls on the table. “Why are you frozen in the way? Something wrong?”

“Nope.” He smiled and kissed the top of her head as she walked by. “Not a thing.”

She wiped her hands on the dishcloth over her shoulder, but eyed him warily while working on the potatoes on the stove. “I've been hearing some surprising things about Beatrice Muldoon.”

“Have you?” He sat down at the kitchen table and watched while his mother competently juggled three different dishes at once.

“I have. I heard from Millie Stanler—she's got that old Golden you had to put down last week?”

“I remember.” Poor thing had cancer, and was older than Moses to boot. And even knowing it was the best thing for the poor dog, Millie had been a sobbing wreck. Not that he blamed her. He felt a tickle in the back of his own throat every time he put an animal down. He avoided it whenever possible, but it still got to him.

“She mentioned Beatrice was there at the desk after . . .” She stirred a pot of peas for a moment. “Millie said she got in her car and sat behind the wheel and cried for twenty minutes in the parking lot. And when Beatrice noticed, she came out and sat with her. Just sat, then asked about what old Reggie was like as a pup. How long they'd had him, what he liked to play, that sort of thing. Got her through the worst of it to think about him young and healthy again and remember why it was his time to go now.”

His heart constricted a little. She noticed, and cared, so much more than she let people believe. “What part was surprising?”

“Maybe that she would recognize Millie needed someone to talk to. Beatrice seems so self-absorbed half the time, like she wouldn't realize if someone was drowning in front of her face. Not a malicious lack of empathy, but just a bred-in-the-bone lack of awareness for others.”

Morgan's fists clenched and he started to say something, but his mother went on.

“But maybe even more surprising was that she'd even realize what to say.” His mother tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot and laid it aside. “I've known Millie since we were girls, and all I could say was ‘I'm sorry' and ‘If you need anything, call me.' But that only seemed to make her cry harder. Millie made it sound like Beatrice was her savior that day. That she wouldn't have been able to drive home without their talk.”

His hands relaxed a little. “Again, what was surprising?”

His mother shot him a sardonic glance. “She seems to be quite good at hiding this part of her, isn't she?”

He nodded, quiet for a bit. Why was that?

“Seems to me,” she continued, not waiting for him, “that a woman who can be that deceptive might not be good for a man.”

And there it was. The real reason for the conversation. “Good for me, you mean.”

“I love you, Morgan—”

“Ho, boy,” he muttered.

“—but I worry about you. Your own heart is too open, too ready to be drop-kicked and torn to shreds. It's wonderful when it's animals. They don't have a manipulative bone in their bodies. What you see is what you get.”

He raised a brow.

“You can't say the same for Beatrice Muldoon, can you?” She opened the oven a smidge and checked her roast. “That girl's got secrets. Secrets aren't good for a relationship. It's just not a good way to start things off. That's all I'm saying.” Her speech concluded, she turned her back to him and worked on dinner.

No way to avoid it now.

“Mom.”

“Hmm?” She took a smaller spoon out and tasted the potatoes, setting the spoon in the sink after. “Needs more garlic.”

“Mom?”

“Hmm.”

“We're involved.”

That got her attention. “Beatrice?”

“Bea. And yes, we're involved. Romantically. I appreciate your wanting to spare my feelings and save my heart from any damage, but you're wrong about her. She's not out to manipulate me. She's a good person. She's a person I trust fully. And wherever our relationship goes, however far it takes us, I'm hoping you respect her and respect us together.”