Bounty Read online

  In my life I’d seen many a player, rocker, club rat, cowboy, jock, biker, businessman.

  And with all I’d seen, all I’d met, all I’d had…

  It was him.

  A man in faded jeans and a white tee at a chain link fence in a biker bar in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, sucking back a beer, laughing with his bud.

  And I didn’t know his name.

  What I knew was that I wanted him to take me wherever it was he lived his life, plant me in it so deep I could never pull at the roots, flourish in the life we built together, and wither to dust by his side.

  I also knew this would never happen. No way in hell.

  That man would not touch me with a ten-foot pole. He’d find out who I was and cut me so quickly, I wouldn’t feel the bleed until after he was long gone.

  As I realized I’d stopped dead to stare at him, and I didn’t want him (or anyone) catching me staring at him, I tore my eyes away, casting them to my feet, and moved quickly to the vacant table, around it, putting my ass on a stool with my back to the corner. I tossed my purse on the table and set my drink there.

  And I felt the bleed.

  He’d never speak to me.

  I’d never know his name.

  It was him. Only him. But even if there was another him in the miracle of life, I couldn’t have that him either.

  I’d never have that him.

  I was what I was, who I was, and finally having that knowledge that the less I was thinking I wanted actually was more, much more, and I’d never have it…

  Yeah, I felt the bleed.

  I sipped my Jack and Coke and then did the only thing I knew how to do to staunch the flow when it all got too much. When what my dad called “the curse of the Lonesome” reared its head, making me think things like I thought about that man, just at a glance. Making me feel deeper than was healthy.

  Making me bleed for no reason that was every reason.

  I pulled out the tiny notebook in my purse, sucked back more Jack and Coke so it was nothing but ice, tugged the band from around the embossed leather covering the notebook and opened it to a fresh page. The page where I always kept my pencil at the ready for times like these.

  I bent my head and began.

  Wither to dust

  Crumble like rust

  Do it at your side

  Fresh air

  Cold beer

  Root myself in you

  Together kiss the morning dew

  Breathless to bring on the night

  Memorizing you, the only thing that’s right.

  Wither to dust

  Crumble like rust

  Do it at your side

  You, the only thing I need when I have everything

  You, the breath I breathe I only get when you’re laughing

  Chain links

  Worn jeans

  Wither to dust

  Crumble like rust

  Do it at your side

  It didn’t flow this time. I had to work at it.

  Sometimes it did. This time, it didn’t.

  There were strikeouts. Written over words. Lines blackened, a new one added at the side.

  For this, it had to be perfect.

  On that thought, my head shot up when a plastic cup with an iced beverage that looked like Jack and Coke was slid across the table toward my notebook.

  I looked sideways. My gaze hit a white-T-shirt-covered wall of chest, my back went straight, my head turned fully that way, and I looked up, up and up.

  And then I was mired in somber hazel eyes.

  The man at the fence.

  I forgot how to breathe.

  A deep, coarse voice assaulted my ears.

  “Pretty woman like you shouldn’t be suckin’ the dregs of a drink.”

  I said nothing. I couldn’t. I was frozen in time, never wanting to be thawed.

  Those hazel eyes dropped to my notebook then came back up to lock on mine.

  “Pretty woman like you shouldn’t be sittin’ in a bar alone in a corner writin’ in her diary, either.”

  “It’s not a diary,” my mouth blurted, fortunately working since nothing else on or in my body was.

  “Then what is it?”

  I had no reply to that because I knew it wasn’t a diary but my brain had quit functioning so I forgot what it was.

  His gaze stayed locked to mine.

  I remained silent.

  His brows shot together over narrowed eyes.

  My heart skipped once, luckily pushing blood through my veins, but then it halted again.

  “You in there?” he asked.

  God, I was being an idiot!

  “I…uh, write thoughts in it,” I told him.

  “Like a diary,” he returned.

  “Not those kinds of thoughts. I mean, they are, but they’re not. If you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t,” he shared brusquely.

  “Lyrics,” I admitted, it came out soft because I didn’t give that to anyone and I had no clue why I gave it to him. The only ones who knew I still did that were Dad, Lacey and Bianca. “Kinda poetry, I guess,” I finished.

  His brow stayed knit over narrowed eyes. “You’re sittin’ in a biker bar writing poetry?”

  That was so ridiculous, my mouth remembered how to form a smile.

  This it did and it continued to do so, except frozen, when those hazel eyes dropped to it.

  I had to force my lips to move with, “It’s just, I learned, when the spirit moves me, to get it out.”

  He looked back into my eyes. “Even in a biker bar at one in the morning?”

  “Even in a biker bar at one in the morning,” I confirmed.

  “Good you’re pretty, babe,” he stated, leaning toward the table, putting his strapping forearms to it, making the breathing I’d managed to begin doing again start to be difficult. “’Cause that shit’s whacked.”

  This was insulting.

  It was kind of true, in a way, for someone who didn’t get it. For someone who didn’t have the curse.

  But saying it out loud was not cool.

  I was totally unoffended.

  “I’m not your average girl,” I shared the god’s honest truth.

  His eyes roamed my face and hair as his mouth muttered, “Already got that.”

  My insides melted.

  Oh God.

  “Um…” That came out, but even if I’d had no qualms flirting with any player, rocker, club rat, cowboy, jock, biker or businessman that intrigued me who threw out a line, with this guy I couldn’t think what else to say.

  He didn’t lift away from the table even as he brought his beer to his lips, tipped his head and threw back a pull.

  I watched and had another reason why no thoughts were coming into my head.

  When he righted, I latched on to what to say.

  “Thanks for the drink.”

  “I’d say you’re welcome if you were drinkin’ it.”

  I closed my pencil into my notebook and reached for my drink.

  But even as I curled my fingers around it, I didn’t lift it, but instead looked to him.

  “What is it?”

  “Jack and Coke.”

  This surprised me.

  “How did you know what I drink?”

  “Told the bartender I wanted to buy a drink for the girl with all the hair, all the leg and all the ass. He started makin’ it before I got to the part about you bein’ the only girl in this joint not into the scene. So, that’s sayin’ your hair, those legs and that ass made an impression and not just on me.”

  There it was again. Not an insult this time. But if he was trying to pick me up (and a man did not buy a woman a drink if he wasn’t trying that), his pick-up conversation was unusual.

  He was him. Take him as he came. He wasn’t putting on airs for anybody.

  Not even a girl with lots of hair, leg and ass.

  A thought occurred to me and that thought made me even more melty.

  “Just…you
know, asking. I’m sitting in a corner. How’d you see my—?”

  “Caught you walkin’ to that table. Vision a’ that might just be burned into my brain.”

  He hadn’t looked at me when I was looking at him, that I knew for certain.

  But he’d caught me on the short trek from deep freeze at the sight of him to hitting the table.

  And it moved him to go buy me a drink.

  Lord, I was in danger of a Spinal Tap drummer incident of spontaneous combustion where there’d be nothing left of me but a puddle of goo on my seat.

  “Well…thanks,” I said haltingly, shaking my cup a little to indicate that’s what I meant even if it wasn’t all I meant.

  “Again, I’d say you’re welcome but you’re still not drinking.”

  I lifted the cup an inch off the table but common sense made me stop.

  “Babe.”

  My gaze shot to his.

  He was leaning deeper into his forearms and I noted at that moment that he’d never looked anything but serious. Like he was discussing something important, not picking up some chick at a bar.

  Now he looked more serious.

  “Motherfuckers do that kinda shit to women, they’re motherfuckers,” he stated, and I stared, not only not following where he was going but also a little surprised at his coarse language, regardless of the biker bar. “I’m no motherfucker. Wouldn’t slip you shit. Not only because I’m not a motherfucker and it’d never fuckin’ cross my mind to do that to a woman, but because I get a woman, not interested in her bein’ under me passed out. Interested in her bein’ under me and bein’ seriously fuckin’ interested in bein’ under me. You with me?”

  “I’m with you,” I said, all breathy because in all I’d seen and all I’d done and all I’d met, there wasn’t a single experience like him.

  Not one.

  Not to mention the fact that I was so totally interested in being under him.

  “Name,” he grunted, edging away a couple of inches.

  I recognized this as a demand to provide my name so I said, “Justice.”

  That heavy brow knitted again. “Say what?”

  “Justice,” I repeated and shook my head. “My dad is a little…” How to explain all that was my dad? “Out there. He convinced my mom to be out there too. But just to say, it’s arguable but she might be more out there than he is. She just loves Linda Ronstadt with a love that’s more than a love so she wanted to call me Linda.”

  This was true. My mom Joss loved Linda. But, according to the story, the minute Dad suggested Justice, she’d jumped right on that train.

  He stared into my eyes for long beats before he again took in my face and hair then back to my eyes.

  “Suits you. Actually fuckin’ cool. Justice,” he murmured.

  My nipples started tingling.

  “You are?” I asked.

  “Deke,” he answered.

  Finally, I lifted my drink, motioned his way with it, and said, “Thanks for the drink, Deke.” Then I took a sip.

  When I finished, he asked, “You here alone,” he looked down to my notebook and back up, “sittin’ in a corner, writin’ poetry?”

  He still looked serious but I had the strange impression he was teasing.

  “No, I’m with a couple of girlfriends.”

  “They ditch you?”

  “Well, they’re hooking up but we never ditch each other. They’re around.”

  Though, maybe Bianca wasn’t. But Lacey wouldn’t take off without letting me know she was going and letting me see who she was taking off with so I could look him over, cast my judgment and decide if I would allow her to go.

  “They know you’re in a corner writing poetry while they’re hooking up?” he asked.

  I drew in a quick breath at his words.

  Maybe he wasn’t serious.

  Maybe he was ticked.

  Ticked I was alone in a corner, forced to fall into my notebook while my girlfriends flirted and danced and had fun, basking in attention from the guys they’d wrangled, leaving me alone in that corner with my notebook.

  “It’s all good, Deke,” I promised him.

  He studied me and didn’t say anything before, suddenly, he turned his head to look toward the bar. He turned it again to look outside to the patio and then again to me.

  When I had his attention, he still didn’t say anything.

  I was about to when he finally did.

  “Fuck, never seen such pretty hair.”

  Now that was a compliment and something in me knew he didn’t give many. Not even to girls he bought drinks.

  Not like that.

  I felt the tears sting the backs of my eyes.

  Wither to dust

  Crumble like rust

  Do it at your side

  “You ride?” he asked abruptly.

  “Uh…my own bike?” I asked back.

  “On the back of one, babe.”

  Yes.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  “Yes,” I answered immediately.

  “Here on a ride with my bro. We’re takin’ off now ’cause we gotta meet someone. You open tomorrow to go for a ride?”

  “Absolutely,” I again answered immediately.

  He nodded again, his serious hazel gaze starting to fire.

  He wanted me on his bike.

  I wanted to be on his bike but I wanted more, oh so much more to be the woman he wanted with him on his bike.

  “You want me to pick you up wherever you are or you wanna meet me here at the bar?” he asked.

  “Lacey and Bianca and me are at the dude ranch.”

  His lips quirked.

  I felt like throwing my head back and screaming my victory at that minor show of amusement that I gave him.

  “Eleven. I’ll pick you up at that ranch,” he declared.

  I nodded but asked, “You know it?”

  “See your point. No. Don’t know jack about this place. Bein’ where we are, though, there’s the possibility of there bein’ fifty dude ranches so sock it to me the name.”

  “Shooting Star,” I told him.

  He looked to the patio, jerked his chin up at somebody (undoubtedly his “bro”) and back to me.

  “Eleven, Shooting Star.”

  I nodded, heart racing, even in all the adventures I’d had, never, not once, not even back before the shine was beginning to tarnish, not ever looking forward to anything more in my life than seeing Deke at eleven the next morning at the Shooting Star Dude Ranch.

  In a blink that was a shock to the system for a variety of reasons, I found my chin captured between the pad of his thumb and the side of his forefinger.

  In another blink, his face was my whole world.

  “Get back to your girls,” he rumbled. “No woman, pretty or not, should have her face in a book writin’ poetry and it’s not about writin’ poetry. It’s about you bein’ aware of where you are and what’s happenin’ around you. This ain’t no coffee house, baby girl, have a care.”

  You, the only thing I need when I have everything

  You, the breath I breathe I only get when you’re laughing

  Chain links

  Worn jeans

  Wither to dust

  Crumble like rust

  Do it at your side

  “Okay, Deke,” I replied quietly.

  He did a slow nod as he released my chin but twisted his hand, forefinger extended, so he could slide the tip of it from the top of my throat along the soft skin under my jaw to the point of my chin.

  I felt that light touch burn and when I lost it, I wanted to lean toward him to keep the connection, even if I only got another second.

  “Eleven, Justice,” he said.

  “Eleven, Deke.”

  When I finished saying his name, he left his beer where it lay, turned and walked outside.

  He disappeared around the side of the building.

  He didn’t look back.

  * * * * *

  Ten hours later, I waited on
the porch outside the reception area of the Shooting Star Dude Ranch.

  I’d had not a wink of sleep.

  I was not tired.

  * * * * *

  Eleven hours later, I was still waiting.

  * * * * *

  Twelve hours later, I went to find my girls to get a drink.

  * * * * *

  Deke never came.

  Chapter One

  I’d Take Them

  Justice

  Seven Years Later

  “It comes with ten acres and we recently had the gentleman who owns an adjoining three come to us to say he’s ready to sell that parcel of land. So it could be thirteen acres. And just to say, on the south side of the property, the man who owns that acreage is getting on in years. His children are gone and not coming back. Word is he’s having trouble taking care of the place so it might not be hard to get him to let go of some of his land. He has fifty acres. He might be approachable to double your lot, say, in case you want horses.”

  I wanted horses.

  I wanted the land.

  But I stood in that shell of a house, immobile.

  “As you can see,” the real estate agent went on hurriedly, knowing exactly what I could see and what a mess it was, that being what made me immobile, “it’s a little rough but when it’s complete, it’s going to be something amazing. And the couple who started it wanted to live in it while it was being finished so the master bed and bath are completely done and fully functional.”

  At this news, I didn’t move a muscle. Not even to blink.

  And I didn’t say a word.

  “And it’s all here,” the agent continued. “All the materials, even the appliances are in boxes out in the garage. Top of the line. Double door Sub-Zero. Six-burner Viking stove. Marble counters, though they need to be cut…”

  She trailed off but it could be that I’d stopped listening because it wasn’t only the marble counters that needed to be cut.

  Everything needed to be done.

  There were outer walls, windows set in, a roof over it all, and there was a fireplace in the middle of the room that looked mostly finished (but what did I know?).

  That was it.

  Inside, there were two-by-fours delineating rooms and cabinet-shaped, movers’-blanket-wrapped bundles sitting around the space, a kitchen waiting to be unearthed and constructed. There were also open steel boxes set high and low to the two-by-four-walls with wires poking out. Piles of what looked like hardwood floors waiting to be put in. Stacks of sheets of drywall waiting to be installed. More bags and boxes of this, that and the other, possibly powdered grout, tile, light switches (who knew?) to be unearthed and utilized.