Читать книгу A Tall, Dark Cowboy Christmas - Maisey Yates - Страница 13
ОглавлениеMCKENNA COULDN’T BELIEVE she had slept all the way through the night. Not considering she’d lain down at two o’clock. But at least she was feeling revived. Renewed in some way after sleeping for so many hours. Even though it was still dark outside. She was a couple of minutes late heading over to the mess hall, but not late enough that it should matter. At least, not in her opinion. Whatever the opinion of her gruff, grumpy guide was, she didn’t know.
The conclusion she’d come to that morning that was most important was that she needed new clothes. When she got her first check from this job, that would be the thing she took care of right away.
She would also have to figure out transportation. But she didn’t want to waste money on a car. And she didn’t want to save up that long for anything. Not right now.
But today, in a pair of worn jeans, another threadbare sweater, with the heavier sweater she’d been wearing over the top of it, she was feeling slightly day-old. And then some.
At least her hair was clean. Clean and brushed and silky feeling for the first time in weeks.
As victories went, it was a small one, but she would take it.
When she walked into the mess hall, Grant was standing against the back wall, leaning against the display with the coffee on it. He lifted his cup. “You’re late.”
“I know,” she returned.
“If you know what time it is, then why didn’t you come at the right time?”
“Because it’s early? And it took a little longer for me to get ready and get over here than I realized it would.”
“Get it figured out for tomorrow,” he said, his tone hard. Uncompromising.
“Do you let anyone make mistakes?”
“Nope.”
“What about yourself?” she asked. “Are you allowed to make mistakes?”
He stared at her, the moment stretching out into two. “No,” he responded.
And the funny thing was she absolutely believed him. The gravity in his green eyes was far too severe for her to even consider that he might not be deadly serious.
“Come on,” she said, reaching past him and grabbing a coffee cup, her elbow brushing against his solid midsection. She clenched her teeth, trying not to think about just how solid that midsection was. “Mistakes are like walnuts in the cookies of life.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“It would be better without them, but somehow they end up in there half the time, anyway.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, lifted upward slightly, and McKenna’s heart leaped up half a foot in response. She didn’t know why she was reacting to him. He was hot. Big deal. Men were often hot. Sure, not commonly as hot as this one, but whatever.
Of course, there was no reason to be too...too guarded with him. He’d been nice to her, and anyway, it was better for her if he liked her. Or whatever his version of liking someone might be.
“Careful,” she said. “You almost smiled at me.”
“Won’t happen again.”
She arched a brow. “Does that make your smile a mistake, Grant?”
“No,” he said. “Just an unplanned facial tic.”
“Damn. You’re a hard case.”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that one.”
He took a sip of his coffee and her eyes were drawn to his mouth. She had never really been into the cowboy thing or the beard thing. But she liked his. His mouth was... Well, it could almost be called pretty. Except for all the ruggedness that surrounded it. She shouldn’t be staring at it.
She popped the lid on her coffee cup and lifted it. “I’m ready.”
“Just fifteen minutes late now,” he said.
She chose to ignore that. She had hot coffee. She wasn’t going to spoil it with a fight. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve woken up to some decent coffee.” She took a long sip. “It’s blessed.”
“Blessed?”
“If there was a patron saint of caffeinated beverages I’d be saying a prayer of thanks to him right about now. Or her.”
“So tell me,” he said, pushing away from the coffee stand, the only indication that he was ready to get moving. McKenna started to follow him out the door. “How exactly did you find yourself in a position where you’re waking up without coffee in the morning?”
Her stomach twisted, her guard going right back up.
She squinted at him, trying to read his face. “Why do you want to know that?”
“I’m curious,” he said. “Also, maybe wanting to make sure you didn’t murder someone and are now on the run.”
“I told you I wasn’t on the run from the law,” she said.
“It’s entirely possible you’re running from becoming identified by the law. Which makes you not on the run from the law on a technicality.”
“No,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that makes me on the run from the law on a technicality actually.”
“Whatever.”
“It’s a whole series of bad choices, Grant,” she said, trying to sound light and not ashamed or depressed. “The main one being that I got screwed out of my apartment and my deposit and decided to come here.”
“Why here?”
“I found out that I have... A family connection. But I’m not sure how to approach it. You know, since random family members showing up at the front door aren’t always welcome.” She wasn’t going to tell him about what the family relationship was. Certainly wasn’t going into the fact that she was Hank Dalton’s secret baby.
“Is this your only family?”
She nodded. “At least, the only family I want to find. I could maybe track my mom down, but she gave me up. I’m not looking for a tearful reunion. Anyway, I’m not even sure why she gave me up. For all I know she had good reason.”
“Right,” he said. “So you found out you had some extended family here.”
“Yes,” she responded. It was kind of a lie. But not totally. Not that it really mattered. She lied all the time. What was one more?
“But your truck broke down.”
“Dead as a doornail.” She waved her hand in a broad gesture. “At least, barring me finding a thousand dollars. Let me tell you, that is not likely.”
“Right.”
“I don’t really have any connections. The last couple years... There hasn’t really been anyone. I figured why not start over. Totally. Somewhere new. I had a plan. Not the best plan, but I had one. I should know better than to make those by now.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” he responded.
She thought about pressing for more information, because she was curious. Curious what force on heaven or earth had ever dared oppose Grant Dodge. He seemed far too formidable for anyone or anything to dare. But she also had a feeling—a pretty rock-solid one—that he wasn’t interested in having heart-to-heart talks. Least of all with her. The man was a fortress, and she had a feeling that was by design. That he was keeping things locked up for a reason.
Hell, she could understand that.
“Don’t you want to know what we’re doing this morning?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, taking a sip of hot, fortifying coffee. “My brain is feeling just awake enough to handle that information.”
“We’re painting the barn.”
She thought of the pretty, bright-red structure he had showed her yesterday morning. “Isn’t it painted?”
“One of them.”
“There are more barns? Multiple barns?”
“Several. This is the one we keep supplies and machinery in. But Wyatt thinks that we should freshen it up for the tourists.”
“And you don’t?”
“I don’t have a thought about barns, or the color of them, at all.”
“Oh, just the way you said it. Made it seem like it was something he was into, but maybe not you.”
“I’m here to support Wyatt. I would rather be here than working at the power company. That means I do whatever the man wants.”
“It must be tough,” she said. “Working with your brother. Taking orders.”
“Why do you think that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m an only child.” She frowned. Because maybe she wasn’t an only child. If it turned out she was a Dalton, then she had half siblings. But still, she had been raised one, so that counted for something. She had foster siblings sometimes, but ultimately, she was alone in life. There was no group that moved with her. No one she could reach out to when she needed something.
“I always admired the hell out of Wyatt,” Grant said. “He used to be a pro bull rider in the rodeo.”
“Really?” she asked. “That’s kind of badass.”
“Pretty damn badass,” Grant agreed.
He pushed open the door on a barn that had been worn down to the original wood, and held it for her. She went in first. There were dropcloths and ladders, paint rollers and buckets of paint, all ready to go inside.
His demeanor changed when he talked about his brother. He was a little bit less serious. A little bit less of a wall. It intrigued her. Made her want to dig a little deeper. See what other reactions she could possibly get from him.
And why not? Allies were an important thing in this world. It wouldn’t be a terrible thing to make one out of Grant Dodge if she could.
“Where are we starting?”
“Outside,” he said. “I’ll do up high, if you want to do down low.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
He shot her a look she couldn’t quite read. It almost had humor in it—almost. “I have no idea what the kids are calling much of anything these days.”
“I guess I don’t, either,” she said. “What a sobering thought.”
“You’re closer than me.”
“Not by much.”
“Twenty-six? I’d say.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Wow,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So advanced. So aged. Can you even remember what you were doing when you were my age?”
His expression turned to stone. It was an immediate shift. That little glint of humor she had seen in his green eyes, just a hint, gone flat. And just like that, her stomach fell.
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
She’d said something wrong, and she wasn’t sure what. It would be nice if she could find a segue, but she needed at least one more coffee to be that nimble on her feet. “Well, I guess we can cart some paint outside.” Her verbal soft shoe was nothing to write home about.
“Right,” he said.
They hauled out one of the big five-gallon paint buckets, and he started messing around with some piece of equipment she wasn’t familiar with.
“Compressor,” he said. “I’m going to use that on the upper level.
“Wait a minute, you get the power tools? Is that because you’re a man?” She eyeballed her classic, totally uncool paint roller.
“No, I get the power tools because I know how to use them. If running a compressor was something that you did for one of your manual labor jobs, please feel free to inform me, and I will happily turn that work over to you.”
“All right, that’s a good reason. Because no, I haven’t ever used a compressor.”
He pried open the lid on the paint can and started to stir, and she found herself captivated by his movements, even while he was all covered up. This morning he had on a dark jacket and gloves, the same hat he’d been wearing yesterday on top of his head.
“Is this what you would be doing if you weren’t babysitting me?”
“I’m not babysitting. I’m training.”
She shrugged. “Well, is this what you would be doing if I wasn’t here?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Probably by myself.”
“How much of a charity case am I, Grant?”
“I’ll get the job done faster with you here.” His sidestep didn’t go unnoticed.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Do you want the answer, McKenna?”
“I don’t actually care if I’m a charity case. People in my position can’t afford to put pride over a warm meal.”
“Fair enough. It’s probably about fifty-fifty. Because let’s face it, the cleaning work that we need you for doesn’t exactly cover pay and a place to stay. And it sure as hell isn’t full-time.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
“How did you end up—”
“Working a string of menial jobs and having no connections in my life?”
“Yeah,” he said, hefting the five-gallon bucket of paint and pouring a measure into a tray.
“Foster care,” she said. “Which kind of gets you used to the transient lifestyle. Also, not the best for forming long-term attachments.”
“All your life?”
“From the time I was two.”
Most people looked at her with pity after she told them that. Most people said they were sorry. Grant Dodge just seemed to absorb it. Like she had spoken the words to a mountain, and not a man.
“I did not get good grades in school. Didn’t know how to even begin applying for financial aid for college. Didn’t want to, anyway. I struck out on my own with a guy that I met in my last home. That didn’t turn out. Had a little run of didn’t turn out. Decided that at least if I was on my own I was never going to get screwed for anyone else’s mistakes. Which ended up not being true, since my last landlord sold the place out from under me. Thought that was more a deliberate action than a mistake on her part.”
She looked up at Grant. His expression contained neither judgment nor pity, and she didn’t know quite what to do with that. Typically, it was one or the other.
“Aren’t there tenants’ rights to protect you?” he asked.
“Sure,” she answered. “But how am I going to take anyone to court? How am I going to make sure that those rights are enforced? Mostly, it isn’t going to happen.”
He frowned. “That doesn’t seem—”
“Life is not fair, Grant. Not even close.”
“Yeah, I’m actually familiar with that principle.”
Again, she didn’t ask. It was strange, because he was asking her quite a few questions. More than she had expected a guy like him to ask, certainly. But she could tell the reverse would not be welcome.
“Well, then we understand each other to a degree. I don’t expect life to be fair. And that’s why when I’m given unexpected charity, I don’t kick up a fuss. I’ve had enough of the alternative to know that if something good is going to cross my path, I’m going to take it for however long it lasts.”
“Pretty solid principle to live by,” he said.
“I haven’t got a whole hell ton of principles, but the ones I do have have served me pretty well.” She dipped the long-handled roller into the tray of paint and moved it back and forth a few times, sliding it through the ridge part of the tray to get rid of the excess.
“Anywhere?” she asked.
“Anywhere,” he responded.
While he set up the air compressor, she set about making her mark on the side of the barn. She had thought yesterday’s work was satisfying, but this was somewhere beyond that. It was therapeutic in a way. Bright red strokes over weathered, worn wood. Making something new out of something old. It was more than just cleaning, it was transforming. She and Grant worked in relative silence, nothing but the sound of the air compressor, which blended into white noise and became somewhat meditative as she worked through the lower sections of the barn. They worked until her arms ached, and she was hungry.
“Why don’t we take a lunch break?” Grant asked.
“Sounds good to me.”
He covered her paint roller in plastic, and then the two of them walked back down the trail toward the mess hall. This time, when they walked by one of the covered arena areas, there were horses, and a girl with dark hair was riding one around a set of barrels.
“That’s my sister,” he said. “Jamie.”
McKenna found herself glued to the scene in front of her. She walked over to the fence, draping her arms over the top, and just watched. Grant went to stand next to her, a silent, tall figure at her side. “She’s pretty good, isn’t she?”
“Amazing,” McKenna answered.
“You want to ride sometime?”
She turned her head toward him, her expression contorting into one of shock. “I don’t know how.”
“I can teach you,” he said.
“You could teach me?”
He hesitated. “Or Jamie could.”
She wanted Grant to teach her. And if he had been a different man she might have said that. Hell, they were talking about him teaching her to ride. If it had been a different man she probably would’ve made an innuendo out of it.
But then, if it had been a different man she wouldn’t have felt like it. There was a reason she hadn’t been with anyone in a couple of years. She was sick of all the ridiculous nonsense that came with men. The way that a nice relationship turned into a series of transactions, and then faded out into boredom before the guy abandoned her. There was always hope in the beginning. That was one of the things she hated about herself. She could never quite squash that out. She knew women who could. At the last diner she’d worked at, there had been a whole crew of women on swing shift who had been shiny and sharp like obsidian.
Pretty, but hard.
Every client that wanted something extra with his meal was met with laughter and a cutting jab, and McKenna could hold her own there. But then, they also were all in relationships, and McKenna had recently sworn off them.
She remembered talking to the shift manager, Ruby, about that.
“Why don’t you have a man, McKenna?”
“Too much trouble,” McKenna said.
“Sure,” Ruby had replied. “But they don’t have to be. If you know what you’re getting into.”
“That’s the problem,” McKenna responded. “Part of me always hopes that I’m getting into something else.”
Ruby had laughed and blown a smoke ring into the cold, early-morning air. “Oh, I quit hoping a long time ago, honey.”
“Something in me always does.”
“Give it ten years. Give it ten years and you won’t hope anymore. You’ll just be glad for a place to sleep.”
Part of McKenna had envied that. That grim resignation.
Another part of her had been afraid of it.
She wasn’t sure she wanted a life without hope. And she supposed that coming to Gold Valley, and holding out hope there was a right way to tell Hank Dalton that she was probably his daughter, was a testament to that fact. That she wanted hope. That she carried it somewhere inside of her.
But then, if there wasn’t hope at all, she didn’t see the point in walking on.
If what she had so far was representative of what she would have in the future...
Well, she might as well go lie down on that arena dirt next to Jamie Dodge’s next barrel and let her horse trample her to death.
But McKenna didn’t want to be trampled.
She wanted to live for better.
“That would be nice,” she said.
“Yeah, she’s the best, too. She’s starting a job at the Dalton ranch soon, training horses that used to be in the rodeo. The Daltons are, like, rodeo royalty.”
McKenna’s breath felt like it had been sucked from her body.
All that air had been replaced by hunger. A hunger to know more. These details about her family were something she’d had no idea she’d been desperate for.
But she was.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, trying to sound casual. “Rodeo royalty, huh? What does, um...what does that look like?”
“I’m not totally sure. I don’t know them that well. Wyatt knows them better. He used to ride with the brothers in the rodeo. Hank, though, the father, he’s as famous as a cowboy gets.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Grant said. “Back in the eighties he did some big campaign for cigarettes or something. Famous advertising.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. But I hear he settled down in recent years. I guess you have to eventually.”
“Why is that?”
“He has a reputation. Of course, so do his sons. They’re cowboys and smoke jumpers. So, you can imagine.”
“They get a lot of play? Is that what you’re saying?”
“By all accounts, yes.”
“I mean, firefighting cowboys are pretty compelling, even I have to admit.”
“What does that mean?”
“What does what mean?”
“That even you have to admit they’re compelling.”
“I’m not easily compelled by men,” she said.
He gave her a strange look. Like he didn’t know quite what to do with her. Or like she was an alien life form that had dropped down from another planet.
“Shall we go get lunch?” she asked.
“That would be good,” he responded.
The two of them turned away from the arena and walked the rest of the way toward the mess hall. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I think you’re a good babysitter.”
“Thanks,” he said, giving her a slight grin. Friendly expressions from that man were worth their weight in gold, and as she was a woman short on gold, she would take those smiles. She wasn’t sure why it mattered. Maybe because she couldn’t remember the last time she had made another person smile. She’d been in a particular kind of poverty for most of her life. But it was the poverty of connections that was starting to get to her. Living without things she could endure. But this little bit of time she’d spent with Grant—with the entire Dodge family—made her realize how starved she was for the rest.
“So,” she said. “Riding lessons, huh?”
“If you’re up for it.”
“I think I might be.”
She had no idea if she was or not. But what she knew was that she desperately wanted to spend more time with him. Whatever that might mean.
“Tomorrow after work, then,” he said.
“Tomorrow after work.”
