Renegade Father (17 page)

Lost in a haze of adrenaline and raw emotion he was all too familiar with, she would have turned on him as well but he held her close. “It's okay,” he murmured in her ear. “It's me.”

She stilled instantly except for her quick, hard breathing and a steady trembling as reaction began to set in.

Charlie didn't look any happier to see him than Joe was to find his half brother in Annie's bedroom. He was breathing just as hard as Annie and his cheek was bleeding where she must have scratched him.

He reached a hand up and his expression darkened when he pulled it away and saw the blood. “This is none of your business, little brother,” he growled. “It's between me and my wife.”

Joe's voice was dangerous, just like the look he sent his brother. “Unless you've gone and got yourself married again in the last few months, you don't have a wife. Not anymore.”

To Annie, he said softly. “Can I put you down now?”

She nodded and he set her on her feet. Only then did he get his first look at her face, saw the vivid purple bruise already swelling one eye and the blood trickling from her mouth.

Vicious fury broiled through him at seeing her once more marked by Charlie's violence and for a moment, he couldn't think straight. It was so much like all those other times, first with his mother and then with Annie.

He was filled with the same impotent rage he had felt so often before, knowing he could do nothing to protect either one of them.

“You son of a bitch,” he growled. “I warned you what would happen if you ever touched her again.”

He grabbed Charlie by the shirt and shoved him against the wall so hard his head hit with a loud crack.

His brother looked back at him with hate in his eyes. “What are you gonna do? Kill me like you did the old man?”

“Try me,” he bit out.

“He's not worth it, Joe. Stop.”

He glanced at Annie and saw she was trembling wildly now, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

She was right. As much as he wanted to pound Charlie into tiny little pieces, he knew it wouldn't accomplish a thing except maybe make him feel better.

Violence didn't solve anything—he had spent a lifetime learning that bitter lesson.

He let go of his brother's shirt. “If you want to walk away, get out now.”

Charlie swiped at the blood gushing from his cheek. “I want my money,” he snarled.

“What money?” Joe asked, at the same time Annie shook her head.

“You're not getting any more,” she said. “I meant what I said.”

“Then how about I tell loverboy here the real reason you married me?”

“Tell him whatever you want,” she said impatiently.

“You really want me to do that? Tell him how you begged me to marry you so the kid he put in your belly didn't have to grow up the bastard of a convicted murderer? How you were so ashamed he'd touched you and you didn't want anybody to know?”

Her face paled. “Get out of my house.” She barely spoke in a whisper. “And I suggest you slither out of whatever rock you've been hiding under and get the hell out of Madison Valley. I'm calling the sheriff and I'm sure he's going to be very interested to learn you're back in town, especially when I tell him he can now include violating a restraining order to the laundry list of charges against you.”

“You're making a big mistake.”

“No. I've made enough mistakes in my life,” she answered. “Now I'm finally doing what's right. I want you out of my life and out of my children's lives for good and I will do whatever it takes to make that happen.”

Charlie stared at them both for several moments, his face livid, then with a curse, he stalked out the door. “You're going to pay for this,” he yelled on his way out.

She winced once when the outside door slammed shut, but then there was silence.

A
n awkward silence descended on the room as soon as Charlie slammed out of the house.

The lapels of her robe had come apart during her tussle with him and now she pulled them back into place and tied the sash tightly. That done, she had nothing to do with her fingers so she knotted them tightly together.

“I need to call the sheriff. He doesn't think I'll do it. I have to prove to us both that I will.”

Joe nodded his agreement, then listened while she picked up the phone next to her bed and reported that her ex-husband was back in town. Although her voice was calm and steady while she related the information to dispatch, she continued to shake and Joe fought the urge to fold her into his arms and hold her close.

If he did, if he reached for her, he knew he wouldn't be able to let her go.

He focused instead on the practical, the mundane.
“You're bleeding,” he said gruffly after she hung up the phone. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

“You don't have to do that. I can take care of it.”

Ignoring her protests, he led the way into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet for something to cleanse the tiny cut at the corner of her mouth. As careful as he tried to be, she still winced when he dabbed a cotton ball soaked in antiseptic to it.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

She gave a rueful smile then winced again as the movement pulled at the cut. “It's okay. You didn't do it on purpose.” She glanced over his shoulder to study her reflection in the mirrored medicine cabinet. “That's going to be one nasty shiner, isn't it?”

Remembered fury bubbled up inside him and he clenched his teeth together, wishing he'd had more of an opportunity to even the score with his brother.

His gaze shifted from the reflection in the mirror to her and he didn't see any of the chagrin or shame he might have expected. Instead she had her chin lifted and was turning her head this way and that to get a better look at the black eye.

The expression in her face made him think of C.J. when he'd hit the winning home run in a T-ball game last summer. She looked as proud of herself as if she'd just saved the world.

And in a way, she had, he realized. At least her world. For her, the black eye was probably a badge of courage, a reminder that she had finally stood her ground.

He smiled at her, unable to keep the tenderness from filtering through his gaze. “I don't know who was more shocked to find you whaling on him, Charlie or me.”

“Me.” She gave a small laugh. “I swear, I didn't know I had it in me.”

“Where'd you learn to fight like that?”

Her skin blushed under his fingers. “I don't know. I must have looked pretty ridiculous.”

“You looked fierce and courageous,” he answered, his voice quiet. “I was proud of you.”

The tiny bathroom, with its light oak and pale green trim, fell silent again. This time the silence was easy and comfortable.

After several moments, Annie took a deep breath and spoke. “He lied, you know.”

“About what?”

“The reason I married him. I wasn't ashamed to be pregnant with your child. I would have been proud for everyone to know Leah was yours—I wanted to shout it from the highest peak in the Madison Range.”

The intensity of her voice startled him and his gaze met hers. Her eyes looked huge suddenly and the raw emotion shining in them reached right through his chest and yanked out his heart.

“Annie…” he began, but whatever he meant to say was lost, crushed by his overpowering need to touch her.

She responded immediately, her mouth sweet and welcoming under his, and he forgot all the arguments he'd come up with on the ride down the mountain, about how touching her like this again would be crazy.

Maybe it was, but he didn't care anymore. The only thing that mattered was Annie.

As their mouths twisted together, his body thrummed and seethed, desperate to release all this pent-up energy he had wanted to use up pounding Charlie into pieces.

He wanted to take her hard and fast like he had earlier
in the day. That would have more than done the trick to quiet the beast prowling through him, but he forced down the impulse to plunder, to devour.

She didn't need that right now, he sensed instinctively. She'd had more than her share of violence and now she deserved some softness, some tenderness.

He lifted both hands to cup her face, his thumbs tracing the curve of her cheekbones, and he drew out the kiss, slowly, leisurely. His mouth danced lightly over hers again and again.

Her eyes drifted shut and her head sagged as if she couldn't remember how to work her neck muscles. He knew just how she felt, as if he were floating on some barely moving stream with cool water carrying him along and the sun's warmth soaking through to his bones.

He kissed the little cut on her mouth, then pressed his mouth gently to the iridescent bruise forming around her eye.

Her eyes fluttered open again and met his gaze. She looked stunned by his caress and very, very aroused. As he once more returned his mouth to hers she made a low, erotic sound in her throat that nearly made him forget he was trying to take things slow and easy.

With their mouths still entangled, he scooped her off the edge of the tub and carried her through the door into the bedroom then laid her down gently on her old oak double bed. She wouldn't let him pull away but held him tightly to her as he continued his soft assault on her mouth.

Her room smelled like her, he thought through the haze of desire wrapped around him. Like apples and sunshine. Intoxicating and sweet at the same time. Like Annie.

She was only wearing that terry cloth robe and it was easy for him to untie the sash and pull it free. Underneath she was soft and smelled fresh and clean, like spring.

He shed his own clothes quickly and joined her on the bed. Where their lovemaking earlier had had a fierce urgency he had been helpless against, this time he took her slowly, gently. Her response was the same, though, a sweet eagerness that took his breath away.

Afterward, he laid in her old-fashioned bed and held her close while she drifted off to sleep. He didn't want to let go, ever, and the realization scared the hell out of him.

All of his reasons for keeping his distance from her seemed hollow and worthless when he held her. It didn't seem to matter to her that he was just another no-account Redhawk.

It had never mattered to her, he admitted. He was the one with the inferiority complex, who saw all the differences between them. Who thought she deserved far better than an ex-con with a dark past and not much future.

Annie couldn't have cared less about his past. She had always given her affection to him freely, regardless of how screwed up his life had been.

He thought of her sweet, generous lovemaking and wondered if he'd been a fool, if there was a chance they could break free of the past and find their own future together, the future they might have had if he hadn't gone to prison and she hadn't married Charlie.

A snippet of memory from their conversation suddenly flashed through his brain.

He frowned. “Why did you marry him?” he asked suddenly, forgetting she had dozed off.

She blinked awake and stared up at him in confusion. “What?”

He rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed. “You said you didn't marry Charlie to give Leah a name. Why did you marry him, then?”

He had asked her before—hell, he'd asked her a thousand times—but she had always ducked the question. This time she paused as if trying to reach a decision about something, then she looked away from him.

“You,” she said simply.

Just that. A single syllable. He waited for her to continue but she didn't. “What are you talking about?” he finally asked.

She sat up as well and wrapped the quilt around her without meeting his gaze. “He came to me after you were arrested and said he heard you threaten to kill your father at Lulu's on the day he died.”

“I did.” He shrugged. “There's no secret about that. Half the guys in there heard me. I'd had enough of his garbage. I thought things were better, but then I came back to town and found my mother with a broken nose and a cracked rib. I decided I couldn't stand by anymore and do nothing. The only thing Al seemed to understand was a fist so I was going to tell him that if he touched her again, it would be the last time.”

She sent him a quick glance then looked down again, her fingers tracing the pattern of the quilt. “Charlie said he thought you were just talking big, that it was the beer talking, really, but he decided to follow you home just in case.”

She paused. “He said he reached the house just in time to see your father go down and then you slammed his head against the hearth bricks over and over and over again until he stopped moving. He… He said if I
didn't marry him, he would go to his boss at the sheriff's department and tell him everything.”

Disbelief and shock warred within him. “And you believed him?”

“Of course not!” Her mouth twisted with impatience. “I could never believe you were capable of killing your father deliberately, no matter how much he might have deserved it. I know it was just like you said, an accident. You were fighting and you punched him and he fell backward.”

He thought of all the things she didn't know about what happened that night, things he couldn't tell her. Things that were not his to tell.

“If you weren't buying his story, why go through with the marriage?”

“Because I was young and naive and I was afraid others who didn't know you the way I did would be quick to believe him. You know how Charlie could be. If he wanted to, he could sell popsicles in Siberia. Plus he had his own tight little group of drinking buddies. The sheriff, the other deputies. Even Judge Walters whenever his wife kicked him out of the house. It was your word against his and I knew exactly whose story everyone else would believe. He was a deputy sheriff and you were…you.”

“A troublemaking punk who had already had my share of run-ins with the law.”

She blew out a breath. “Charlie would have done his best to make the whole town think your father's death was premeditated, that you went there fully intending to kill him from the beginning. You would have faced first-degree murder charges. A death sentence. I couldn't let that happen.”

The magnitude of what she had done slowly began
to sink through his shock. She had married Charlie because of him. Everything she went through for all those years—her whole nightmare of a marriage—was his fault.

“I never asked you to be a martyr for me.”

His anger took her completely by surprise. She didn't know what she expected—shock, certainly. Amazement, maybe. Whatever she might have anticipated, it wasn't this seething fury radiating from him.

“I know you didn't. And I didn't see it that way.”

“Dammit, Annie. I didn't ask for your help. I didn't need it and I wouldn't have wanted it. You gave up your whole damn life to him!”

Her temper spiked along with his. “You were my best friend.
I was pregnant with your baby!
What else was I supposed to do? Let you be sentenced to death, or worse, spend the rest of your life dying by inches in prison for a crime you didn't commit?”

“Yes! If it would have protected you from Charlie and what you went through. Absolutely.”

“So it's okay for you to martyr yourself to protect me, but not for me to do whatever I could to help you?”

“I never wanted your help.”

“I know,” she snapped. “You never wanted anything from anyone. You've always thought you're some kind of damn island, completely isolated from the rest of the world, emotionally self-sufficient.”

He stared at her for a moment, then turned away and yanked on the rest of his clothes with abrupt movements.

When he was done, he walked to the doorway but before he walked out of the room, he looked at her one last time. All the fury was gone from his expression, leaving just that cold emptiness she hated so much.

“You suffered years of abuse, Annie,” he finally said, his voice low, intense, in contrast to his stony expression. “Do you have any idea how much I hated you for staying with him, for being just like my mother? For letting him hurt you, time after time?”

She had always suspected it. But hearing him say the words, hearing the accusation and the contempt in his voice, was worse than any of Charlie's blows could ever be.

Tears burned behind her eyes but she blinked them back. She wouldn't let him see them. Not now.

He looked away and his chiseled features seemed as bleak and forbidding as the Spanish Peaks. “How am I supposed to feel now, knowing the only reason you put yourself in that hell of a marriage was because of me?”

“I don't know,” she whispered.

“Neither do I.” He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, her heart cracked apart at the desolate sadness there. “And I don't know if I can forgive either one of us.”

Without another word, he walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

 

The remaining days of Joe's time at the Double C passed in a haze of misery for Annie, as winter grudgingly gave way to spring.

They still worked together, branding calves, riding fence line, preparing the soil for planting as the snow finally began to melt. But through it all, he remained distant and aloof, taking all of his meals in the foreman's cottage and deliberately assigning himself to work with the other hands whenever possible.

Any conversation between them was abrupt, awkward, and she sometimes sensed him watching her out
of brooding dark eyes while they worked around the ranch.

But he didn't refer to their final confrontation again and she couldn't bring herself to dredge it all up again.

The night before he was to leave, Annie sat in her office trying again to catch up on paperwork in a futile attempt to keep her mind and hands occupied. As of the next day, she would truly be on her own at the Double C and the weight of that responsibility scared her to death.