The prodigal son of Copper Ridge, Oregon, has finally come home

The man who ruined Rebecca Bear’s life just strolled back into it with one heck of an offer. Years ago, Gage West’s recklessness left Rebecca scarred inside and out. Now he wants to make amends by gifting her the building that houses her souvenir store. Rebecca won’t take Gage’s charity, but she’s willing to make a deal with the sexy, reclusive cowboy. Yet keeping her enemy close is growing dangerously appealing…

He’s the wild West brother, the bad seed of Copper Ridge. That’s why Gage needs the absolution Rebecca offers. He just didn’t expect to need her. After years of regretting his past, he knows where his future lies—with this strong, irresistible woman who could make a black sheep come home to stay…

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates

“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy [Yates’s] small-town romance.”

—Booklist on Part Time Cowboy

“Passionate, energetic and jam-packed with personality.”

—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on Part Time Cowboy

“Yates writes a story with emotional depth, intense heartache and love that is hard fought for and eventually won in the second Copper Ridge installment… This is a book readers will be telling their friends about.”

—RT Book Reviews on Brokedown Cowboy

“Wraps up nicely, leaving readers with a desire to read more about the feisty duo.”

—Publishers Weekly on Bad News Cowboy

“The setting is vivid, the secondary characters charming, and the plot has depth and interesting twists. But it is the hero and heroine who truly drive this story.”

—BookPage on Bad News Cowboy

Last Chance Rebel

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

REBECCA BEAR FINISHED putting the last of the Christmas decorations onto the shelf and took a step back, smiling at her work.

Changing seasons was always her favorite thing to do at the Trading Post. Getting the new stock in and arranging it on her antique furniture, adding appropriate garlands and just the right scented candle to evoke the mood. It was the kind of thing she could never do in her own house, since all of her money was poured straight back into the business. So she got it out of her system here.

The air was filled with pine, apples and cinnamon spice. She inhaled deeply, a sweet sense of satisfaction washing over her.

Her store was tiny. Rent on Main Street, Copper Ridge, Oregon, was most definitely at a premium. Which was likely why every decent building on the block was owned by the richest family in town.

But she liked her modest space, stacked from floor to ceiling with knickknacks of all varieties. From the cheesy driftwood sort tourists were always after when they came to the coast, to art and furniture handcrafted by locals.

Beyond that, she tended to collect anything that she found interesting. She turned, facing the bright blue sideboard that was up against one of the walls. That was her bird display. Little ceramic birds, teaspoons with birds engraved on the handles, mugs with birds and frivolous little statues made of pinecones and driftwood to be placed anywhere in your home. All of them arranged over a beautiful handmade doily from one of the older women in town.

She kept that display all year round, and it always made her feel cheerful. She supposed that was because it was easy to identify with birds. They could fly anywhere, but they always came back home.

The bell above her door tinkled, and she turned around, a strange, twisting sensation hitting her hard in the stomach as a man ducked his head and walked inside.

His face was obscured by a dark cowboy hat. His shoulders were broad, and so was his chest. In spite of the cold weather he was wearing nothing but a tight black T-shirt, exposing muscular arms and forearms, and a dark band tattooed on his skin.

He straightened, tilting his hat backward, revealing a face that was arresting. It really was the only word. It stopped her in her tracks, stopped her breath in her lungs.

She had never seen him before. And yet, there was something familiar about him. Like she had seen those blue eyes before in a slightly different shape. Like she had seen that square jaw, darkened with stubble in a different context.

It was so strange. She wondered for a moment if maybe he were famous and it was just such a shock seeing him in her store and not in pictures that she couldn’t place him. He was definitely good-looking enough to be a celebrity. A male model. Maybe a really hot baseball player.

“The place looks good,” he said.

“Thank you,” she responded, trying to sound polite and not weirded out.

She wasn’t used to fielding random compliments on the look of her store from men who towered over her by at least a foot. Occasionally, little old ladies complimented her on that sort of thing. But not men like him.

“You do pretty good business,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” she said, taking a step backward, toward the counter. Her cellphone was over there, and while she doubted this guy was a psychopath, she didn’t take chances with much of anything.

“I’ve been looking over some of your financial information, and I’m pretty impressed.”

Her stomach turned to ice. “I...why have you been looking at my financial...anything? How do you have access to that information?”

“It’s part of the rental agreement you have with Nathan West. He’s the owner of your building.”

She knew perfectly well who the owner of her building was. It felt a lot like making a deal with the devil to rent from Nathan West, but he owned the vacant part of Main, and she’d done her best to separate her personal issues from the man who potentially held her financial future in his hands.

Anyway, she’d figured that if she didn’t rent from him—if she found a place off the beaten path—and took a financial hit for it, then she was allowing the West family to continue to damage her.

So she’d swallowed all her pride—which was spiky, injured and difficult at the best of times—and had agreed to rent the building from him.

Also, it wasn’t Nathan West she had cause to hate. Not really.

It was his son.

Suddenly, she felt rocked. Rocked by the blue eyes of the man standing in front of her. She knew why they looked familiar now. But it couldn’t be. Gage West had taken off years ago, after he’d ruined her life, and no one had ever seen him again.

He couldn’t be back now. It wasn’t possible.

Well, it was unless he was dead, but it wasn’t fair.

She drew in a breath. “I reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. I’ve never cashed that chip in before, but I think today I just might.”

“Rebecca,” he said, his voice low, intense. “We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t,” she said, her throat getting tight. “Not if you’re who I think you are. We don’t need to do anything. You need to get the ever-loving hell out of my store before I grab the shotgun I keep under the counter.”

“Gage West,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken. As though she hadn’t threatened him. “I’m acting as my father’s executor. I don’t know if you heard, but he had a stroke a couple of days ago and is still recovering in the hospital.”

“I hadn’t heard,” she said, not quite able to bring herself to say she was sorry. She wasn’t all that surprised the news hadn’t reached her; gossip tended to travel quickly in a town the size of Copper Ridge, but she’d all but been hibernating in her store while preparing for the holiday season. “I don’t need to do any business with you, though.”

“That’s not the case.”

“Yes, it absolutely is. I’ve managed to rent this building from your father for seven years. And in all that time I saw him face-to-face only a couple of times, otherwise we went through a property manager. I don’t see why it has to be any different now.”

“Because things are different now.”

“Okay. Do you want to talk about things being different? I assume you know who I am.” Her voice was vibrating with rage, and she resented him. Resented him for walking into this little slice of the world that she had carved out for herself. This beautiful, serene place that was supposed to be hers and only hers. And in had walked her own personal demon in cowboy boots.

“I know who you are,” he said, his tone rough.

“Then you know I’m not kidding about the shotgun.”

“Look, Rebecca—”

“No, you look. The only thing I know about you is that you were driving a car on a rainy night seventeen years ago and caused an accident that destroyed my life. I assume that’s all you know about me too. My name. Maybe my age. Maybe how much my mother was paid to keep the whole thing quiet.”

Those blue eyes burned into hers for a moment. “I don’t know the exact amount, but my father made it clear that he paid to take care of my mistakes. And yes, I know about you too.”

“Then why are you in my store? You shouldn’t be able to look me in the eye, much less stand here and talk to me like you don’t know exactly what you did.”

He just stood there, looking a lot like a fighter resigned to taking blows. He didn’t look defeated, nor did he look properly ashamed. And it seemed as though her jabs were glancing off of him.

“I’m here because I wanted to make sure that you knew the details of the situation.”

“I’m informed,” she said, hearing the weariness in her tone. “Thank you for stopping by. Feel free to let the door hit you on the way out.”

“I’m going to buy the building.” He continued on as though she hadn’t spoken.

She felt like she had been hit by a car he was driving all over again. “You what?”

“I’ve been back in town for two days, and in that time, I’ve been going over the financial situation my family find themselves in.”

“Filthy rich with silver spoons up their asses?”

“Much less rich than my father would have people believe.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “And like it or not, it’s my job to fix it. From my point of view the only option he has is to start lightening the load, so to speak. It’s a sinking ship. And that means we have to throw cargo off. That means these little buildings that he owns here on Main are the first thing that need to go, from my perspective.”

She struggled to keep her voice calm even as the world reeled around her. The Almighty Nathan West wasn’t swimming in money? And her store—her safe haven—was about to be sold out from under her, just like that? “Wait a second. You think you’re qualified to make decisions like this? Where exactly did you get your degree?”

“Some online program. I printed the actual degree out at a Motel 6 in a shit town in Idaho I was passing through a few years ago.”

If it had been someone else under other circumstances, she might have appreciated his quick wit. “Which just serves as reminder that you’ve been gone from Copper Ridge for years. So why exactly do you think you’re qualified to make this decision? A decision that affects me, and the other people who are currently tenants in your father’s little fiefdom here.”

He lifted a shoulder, maddeningly calm, as he had been from the moment he had walked in. “I don’t suppose I could ask you to trust me on that.”

“I don’t suppose you could.”

“That’s too bad, but unfortunately it doesn’t change anything. I’m not here to put you out, but we can’t hold on to any assets that are going to damage the West family finances.”

“But you said that you’re buying the building. Aren’t you the West family and its finances?”

“No,” he said, another infuriatingly opaque answer.

She narrowed her eyes. “If you’re going to hand out an eviction notice, why don’t you do it now? There’s a nice symmetry to it. Just give me one more problem to put on your shoulders, Gage West. I don’t mind. I’m happy to let you carry around my suffering.”

“I don’t want your suffering,” he said, studying her from those impenetrable eyes. “But I would like to give you the building.”

* * *

GAGE HALF EXPECTED her to go for the shotgun now. Not that he could blame her. He couldn’t blame her for any of this. For her anger, for her threats. He deserved every single thing that she lobbed at him. And more. But he had never pretended he wasn’t guilty.

He was guilty. Straight down to the center of his soul, if he even had one left. He wasn’t looking for atonement, wasn’t searching for absolution. It wasn’t to be had.

He simply wanted to fix what he could. It was why he was here.

“Get out.”

That wasn’t the response he had expected. He had at least expected curiosity. But from the moment he had walked into the store, it had been apparent that Rebecca Bear wasn’t quite what he had bargained for.

He hadn’t pictured her being this hard, for one thing. He hadn’t exactly pictured her as a woman either, in spite of the fact that he knew she had been running her own business here on Main Street for the past seven years. He was well aware of that because he had financed it in the first place. Not that she knew that. If she did, she would probably make good on her threats.

Still, it had been a shock to walk through the door and see her standing there, her chestnut hair cascading down past her shoulders, a smooth silky river, the petite but generous figure perfectly designed to draw a man’s eye to all of the relevant dips and swells. Then there were her eyes, dark, sharp.

But what stopped him short was her smooth golden skin. Smooth golden skin that then transformed into a rough landscape midway down one side of her face, extending down her neck and beneath the collar of her shirt.

His most enduring gift to her.

“Not until you hear me out.”

“I’ll call Sheriff Garrett.”

“I own the building. Or, my family does.”

“Eli won’t care.” He could tell by the determined glitter in her eyes that even if she was bluffing, she was prepared to take her chances. Well, so was he. And the threat of having the police called was not exactly a deterrent to a man like him.

“I want to give you the building,” he repeated.

She looked as though she had been slapped. “I don’t want your charity.”

“It isn’t charity. Consider it payment.”

“Payment?” The word was nearly a feral growl. “Compensation for everything that’s behind door number one?” She waved her hand over the left half of her body as she said that. “Thanks, but I’m going to take a hard pass on your blood money.”

He had expected a lot of things. That she would be angry, of course. That she would be justifiably upset at his presence. But he had not expected her to reject his offer to give her the building her business was in outright.

“It isn’t blood money. I owe you.”

“Yeah, you’re damn right you do. But you couldn’t repay me, not in this lifetime. There are things money can’t fix, and I know that since you’re a West that’s a difficult concept for you to wrap your brain around, but it’s the truth. And it’s a truth people like me have known for years. Because we can’t just throw money at things to make our problems go away. To cover them up. We actually have to deal with them.”

“You think I’ve been off somewhere living the high life all this time?” His conscience, so seared he had thought perhaps it had no more feeling left in it, burned slightly. Regardless of what he had actually been doing or the means within which he had been living, he’d had access to a lot of money.

“I think however you’ve been living, you have the mindset of someone who was born with money. Which is why you ever thought it was all right for you to behave in a way that put you beyond the rules. And when people like you do that, people like me suffer. That’s the end of the story. I am the cautionary tale of your excess.”

She wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t already said to himself, every day for the past seventeen years. It was why he’d tattooed the reminder on his arm. It was why he had left. Why this was the first time he had set foot in Copper Ridge since that night he’d walked out of his father’s office for the last time.

“Trust me. I know.”

Her lip curled. “You don’t know anything.”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

“Unfortunately. Of course it all feels unfortunate to you. To realize that your actions have far-reaching consequences that you can’t control.” She took a deep breath. “But I can’t just call it unfortunate. This is my life. Now get out of my store.”

Well, Gage hadn’t had a positive greeting from anyone in town so far. So he couldn’t really blame the woman he had permanently scarred for being the least enthused of all upon his return.

“Okay. I’ll go. But I’m going to be back, and we’re going to talk when you’re able to be rational.”

She planted her hands on the counter, staring him down. “Oh, I haven’t begun to be rational with you. If you overstay your welcome, I might be tempted to rationalize a whole lot of things. Such as taking advantage of certain home-invasion laws and twisting them to include my business.”

If there was one thing Gage had learned over the years, it was the value of retreat. He tipped his hat in a gesture he hoped she’d take as polite and not cocky. “I’ll take that as my cue. But I will be back, Rebecca.”

Then he turned and walked out of the store. Back on Main Street, he let out a hard breath, his chest loosening, a tension he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying easing slightly.

Dealing with Rebecca was never going to be simple. He’d known that going in. But he was here to deal with his responsibilities.

If there was one thing he’d learned, it was that you couldn’t run from your demons. They’d spent years nipping at his heels as he’d moved from place to place, before they’d caught right up to him and possessed him outright.

He was here to perform a damn exorcism. And although she had every right to hate him, Rebecca Bear’s pride wasn’t going to get in the way of that.

He’d been close when he’d gotten the call about his dad. Closer than he usually let himself come to his hometown. Typically, he avoided Oregon altogether. But he’d been down near Roseburg doing some temporary work clearing brush and burning it while it was wet, to keep things safer during fire season. Dirty work that kept his mind clear.

The fact he’d been just a couple of hours away would seem like a sign, if he believed in those.

When his lawyer had called, he’d been shocked to hear about his father’s stroke. And to learn that he was the executor of the estate if Nathan West was ever incapacitated.

It had felt...well, it had felt far more damned significant than it should.

It also didn’t escape his notice that his family hadn’t called. Clearly his father’s attorney had been able to get in touch with Gage’s, so that meant someone knew how to contact him. But of course it hadn’t been his brother. Or his mother.

It had been made abundantly clear when he’d gone to the hospital a few days earlier that his siblings were shocked anyone knew of his whereabouts. Shocked he’d returned.

Hell, in some ways, so was he.

He paused, looking up and down the street at the place he’d called home for the first eighteen years of his life. The place he’d been absent from almost as long.

There was a near distressing sameness to Copper Ridge’s Main Street. It had changed shape in many ways, more businesses open than he recalled, a new sort of vitality injected into the local economy.

But it smelled the same. The air unrelenting in its sharpness. Pine mixing with salt and brine as the wind crossed down from the mountains and mingled with the sea. It settled over his skin, the cool dampness wrapping itself around him.

Most days, a thick gray mist hung low, making the sky seem like it was something you could reach up and touch. Today, it was great enough that it blanketed the tops of the buildings, swirling over the red brick detail, blotting out the big American flag that flew proudly just behind the chamber of commerce.

There was an espresso shop across the street, the kind of place that served coffee with more milk than actual substance. He never thought he’d see the day when something that trendy hit Copper Ridge.

Though he supposed it was a little less unexpected than it would have been if they’d gotten in one of those big chains. Copper Ridge just wasn’t a chain kind of place. Mostly because they didn’t have the population to support them.

That had been the bane of his, and his friends’, existence growing up. He supposed it was what made it an attractive tourist destination now.

Funnily enough, when he left he hadn’t sought out a bigger city. Hadn’t cared at all about chains or entertainment. Instead, he’d stuck to the back roads, spending his time in various small towns in different parts of the country.

But nothing was quite like this.

Somehow there was no comfort in that for him. The town brought back too many old memories. In fact, he resented the fact that it was so distinct. He had been to enough places that everything started to blur together eventually. Nothing was unique.

Except Copper Ridge. And that felt like adding insult to damn injury.

He took a deep breath, daring the air to feel familiar. Daring it to push him down that rabbit hole of memories he didn’t want to have.

Gage West was home. And he would rather be anywhere else.

CHAPTER TWO

REBECCA FELT BOTH exhausted and emotionally scarred by the time she turned her open sign around. She needed to get home. She needed to figure out how to deal with the fact that Gage West was apparently back in town and intent on forcing his guilt on her.

No, guilt might make her feel good about herself. She didn’t believe for one second he felt guilty. Not in any real, contrite sense.

Not that she would care either way. His guilt, his overall contrition, didn’t matter. It never had. It didn’t change a damn thing.

She turned, walking back toward the register, feeling weary down to her bones.

The bell sounded behind her and she turned again, about to let whoever it was know that she was closed. But it wasn’t a customer. It was Alison, carrying two boxes that Rebecca knew would be filled with pie. And following closely behind her was Lane, two bottles of wine in her hand. The door closed behind them and opened again as Cassie walked through also carrying a pastry box.

She had managed to forget entirely. Tonight was the weekly girls’ night, and the Trading Post was hosting this week.

“Hi,” she said, feeling even more tired. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to do the socializing thing tonight. The little group of friends, comprised of the female business owners on Main, had become an important source of companionship in her life over the past few years. But there were some things she had always felt most comfortable dealing with on her own.

Or not dealing with at all as she hid away in her mountain cabin. Whatever. It was her drama, her prerogative.

“Hello,” Cassie said, her voice chipper. “God bless Jake. He’s up to his neck in diapers and is at least pretending to be completely cheerful about it.”

Of the group, Cassie was the only one with a husband and children. The rest of them had become pretty confirmed bachelorettes. But if anyone could entice Rebecca into thinking that maybe a husband and kids wasn’t the worst idea, it was Cassie. She was always disgustingly happy.

“What’s the plan for tonight?” Alison asked, walking to the back of the store and setting her box of pies down by the register. “We are not watching another male stripper movie,” she said, directing this comment at Lane.

“I incurred the entire rental expense for that atrocity,” Lane said.

“But my life, Lane. I want my life back.”

“It was two hours,” Lane said. “Calm down.”

“Two hours when I could have done anything else.”

“And yet, I notice you didn’t get up and leave during the movie,” Lane replied.

“I was waiting for the payoff. I assumed that at some point someone would get naked. Instead, there was so much talking,” Alison groused.

“Well, whatever we decide to do, there are snacks,” Cassie said, lifting the tops of the boxes Alison had brought, and also the box she’d brought, and revealing two different pies and an assortment of pastries.

“Snacks are good,” Rebecca said. “Of course, I haven’t had dinner.”

“This is dinner,” Cassie said, advancing on the pie.

“I need a drink,” Lane said, going back behind the counter and rummaging until she produced the wine glasses that Rebecca kept back there for these occasions. “You, Rebecca?”

“I’ll just make some coffee. I have to drive back home after this, and I don’t think I can stay long enough to wait for the buzz to wear off.”

“Rough day?” This question came from Alison.

“Just tired.” She was a liar. A cagey liar.

Her friends knew about her accident. She found that until she divulged the source of her scars it was just a weird eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. But nobody knew who was responsible. In fact, she kept the details as private as possible.

She kept it simple. She had been in a bad car accident when she was eleven, and it had left permanent scarring. The end.

“Are you sure?” Cassie asked, busying herself starting to brew coffee.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m sure. Also, Cassie, you don’t need to make me coffee. That’s what you do all day.”

“I’m well aware of what I do all day, Rebecca. But I don’t want to drink the swill that you call coffee. I’m a connoisseur. An artisan.”

“I’m not going to argue,” Alison said. “Mostly because I just want you to make the coffee.”

“Well, you spent all day making pie. So I suppose I’ll allow it,” Rebecca said.

“Nobody allows me to do anything,” Cassie said. “I’m independent and free. I do what I want.”

“Right,” Lane said. “I imagine if Jake gave you some orders you might take them.”

Cassie wiggled her eyebrows. “Depends on the orders.”

Rebecca always felt a little bit uneasy when the conversation took this kind of turn. Lane and Alison were currently single, but Alison had been married before, and Rebecca couldn’t imagine Lane was as pathetic as she was. Rebecca had no experience with men. And it wasn’t something she ever felt like discussing.

That meant a lot of smiling and nodding was required of her at moments like these.

Right now, she was all out of smile and nod. She just felt depleted. Alison seemed to notice.

“Okay, Rebecca. What’s really going on? You’re being supernaturally quiet.”

“I’m contemplative,” Rebecca said.

“No. You really aren’t,” Lane said.

She let out a long slow breath, using the opportunity to try and think of a very vague way to disclose what had happened today without giving too much away. “I just had kind of an unexpected brush with the past.”

Lane snorted. “There’s small towns for you. Your past is basically your present because nobody ever leaves.”

“Thank God my past left town to keep Sheriff Garrett from breathing down his neck,” Alison said, referencing her hideous ex.

“Not that kind of past.” Though Rebecca thought as soon as she spoke those words that she probably should have let the group think it was an ex.

Alison arched a brow. “Intriguing.”

“No, it isn’t. I... I had an encounter with the man who caused my accident when I was a kid.” There, that wasn’t so bad. She’d said it.

Then she began to reevaluate her “not so bad” assessment. Her three friends were looking at her with very wide eyes.

“He came into the store.”

“You actually know who caused your accident?” Alison asked.

“Yes,” she responded.

All her friends knew was that she had been in a bad accident that had left scars. And of course, that was bad enough. But there was more to it. More that she had never really wanted to talk about with anyone else. And, now was no exception.

“What did you do?” Lane asked.

“I kicked his ass out,” Rebecca responded.

“Did you call Jonathan?” Cassie asked.

“No. And I’m not going to tell him, because the last thing I need is for my older brother to end up in jail because he killed someone. And trust me, if Jonathan had any idea that this guy was back in town, he would get himself locked up for homicide.” Rebecca was only a little bit sure she was exaggerating.

“Do you want me to call Finn? He can come down and hang out by the store. Look menacing or whatever,” Lane said, referencing her friend Finn Donnelly.

Though, she wasn’t entirely sure the cranky rancher would refer to Lane as a friend. Actually, Rebecca wasn’t entirely certain what Lane and Finn’s deal was.

“Thanks for offering the use of Finn without his permission,” Rebecca said. “But I’m fine.”

“What does he...want?” Alison asked. “Did he just want to check in with you? After all these years?”

Rebecca lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. And I really don’t care. As far as I’m concerned he can jump off a bridge. I don’t really want his apologies. Or his pity. Or his anything.” And she certainly didn’t want him to seize control of her building. She didn’t want him to give it to her. She didn’t want him to have his hands on anything that she touched.

“Well, I’m all for holding grudges,” Lane said. “I think it’s healthy. Good for your pores.”

“And, often keeps you safe. Forgiveness is for chumps,” Alison added.

“I would be the first to say that some people are just better off out of your life. Or, off the planet.” Rebecca knew that Cassie was thinking of her ex-husband, the total dud she’d been with before meeting Jake, the love of her life.

“Yes,” Lane said, nodding, taking a sip of wine. “Some people really don’t need forgiveness. And, I imagine the man that left you with permanent physical scars is one of them. He was... He was driving recklessly, wasn’t he?”

He had been. And the ensuing cover-up had meant that he had never been charged. And that no one ever knew. But even if he had been, it would not have solved what happened next. Because that one event was the breakdown of the rest of her life as she’d known it then.

“Yes. I just... It wasn’t really something that I wanted to deal with. I’ve dealt with it, really.”

If dealing with it meant growing yet more bitter by the year, then she most certainly had.

“Well, if he comes back during the workday, you know you can always call me,” Lane said.

“Me too,” said Cassie.

“Obviously, I will also show up with a weapon of some kind,” Alison said.

“I appreciate that. You have no idea how much your willingness to appear with weaponry means to me. But, I think it will be fine.”

“It’s just so desperately random that he showed up,” Lane commented.

It wasn’t quite as random as Lane thought. But, Rebecca didn’t want to get into it. Legally, Rebecca wasn’t allowed to get into it. But then, since none of the payoff money from Nathan West had ever made it into her possession, she wondered if the agreement applied to her. Her mother had taken off with it a long time ago.

The money had never been for her pain and suffering. It had been her mom’s getaway fund.

“I guess assholes who are prone to driving recklessly are also prone to random appearances?” she suggested.

“I guess so,” Alison said, watching her a little bit too closely. Almost as if she sensed there was more to the story. Well, Alison was going to have to keep sensing. Because she was not going to get any more out of her. Alison had a past she didn’t like to talk about. She should understand.

“I don’t want to talk about the asshole anymore. I just want to eat some pie.”

“I respect that.” Lane took a piece of pie out of the box and set it on a paper plate. “Eat your feelings. I bet they’re delicious.”

“Of course her feelings are delicious,” Alison said. “They’re going to be consumed in a vehicle that I baked. And everything I bake is delicious.”

“Hear, hear,” Cassie agreed.

Rebecca was just going to try and put Gage out of her mind. With any luck, he would give up. He had disappeared very effectively for the past seventeen years, and she didn’t really see why he would suddenly be persistent with her now. Hopefully, he had done what he needed to do, and that would be the end of it.

She just wanted to keep sending her checks to the rental company and not dealing directly with Wests.

Yes, not dealing with all of this was definitely her preferred method.

Hopefully, Gage would do the very best thing he actually could do to try and make up for what had happened seventeen years ago. Hopefully, he would leave her alone.

* * *

“WHAT THE HELL are you doing here?”

Gage wasn’t terribly surprised to receive that greeting from his younger brother. He was standing on Colton’s porch, his hands stuffed in his pockets, more or less expecting to be punched in the face.

Surprisingly, Colton made no move to attack him physically. He did not, however, allow him in. That was not surprising.

“I suppose you wouldn’t believe it if I told you I was here to catch up on every Christmas dinner we have ever missed.”

“No. And I would tell you that it’s way too early to be talking about Christmas. We just had Thanksgiving.”

“The stores put the decorations out earlier and earlier every year. Corporate greed I guess.”

Colton looked at him hard. “I don’t suppose you came by to get philosophical about the morality of retail stores.”

He shook his head. “No. I didn’t. But, we do need to discuss the ranch.”

“The ranch that I imagine is one fatted calf short now that you’ve come home?”

Gage examined his younger brother, the lines on his face making his stomach tightened in a strange way. When he had left home Colton had been sixteen. A boy. He hadn’t carried around the burdens of their family, certainly not carved into his skin.

There wasn’t much that made Gage feel like a complete ass these days. But that did it.

“There was no fatted-calf slaughter,” Gage said. “So you can calm down. I’m not the prodigal son. I’m not any kind of son, and we both know that. But I have been looking at all of Dad’s records and I have concerns.”

“Concerns about what?” Colton asked, dragging his hand beneath his chin.

“Dad is broke.”

“What?” Colton lowered his arm, as though he had given up on being gatekeeper between Gage and the house.

“That’s what I’m saying. I’ve been going over all of his assets, all of his debt. He and Mom don’t have any money. What they have is property. Lucky for them they own most of it outright.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How could they not have money? The equestrian facility is doing well.”

“Yes. But he’s been diverting those funds. It looks to me like it’s probably gambling debts. At best. At worst he’s deeply involved in a very sketchy ring of high-priced hookers.”

Colton shook his head. “Or, he has more bastard children.”

Gage gritted his teeth. “You know about him, do you? I mean, do we know about the same one? I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oregon coastline were littered with secret Wests.”

Colton’s expression went slack. “I only know about the one. Jack Monaghan?”

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

“When did you find out?” Colton crossed his arms across his broad chest, and this time Gage put a little bit of thought to the fact that it was entirely possible his younger brother could take him in a fight. Well, depending on what sort of fight Gage treated him to. He was never going to fight his little brother the way he’d learned to fight on the rodeo circuits, and in the bars. He didn’t want to kill him, after all.

It wasn’t just years that stood between them. It was experience. Colton might have earned some facial lines here in Copper Ridge, but Gage had earned scars all across the country.

“I’ve known.” He could remember clearly being introduced intimately to the shady underworld of their father’s empire. Finding out who the man beneath the façade was. It was clear that his father had taken a similar approach to indoctrinating Colton into his world as he’d taken with Gage. And that made him think a little bit differently about his brother.

“Interesting,” Colton said.

“Why is it interesting? You clearly know.”

“Oh, I found out on accident. We’ve all known about Jack for about a year now.”

Just like that, he found himself reevaluating again. “So Dad didn’t tell you?”

“No.” Colton frowned. “Did he tell you?”

“It was one of the payments I needed to understand. Before I left he was priming me to take over the business. You know that.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with his dirty secrets. He didn’t tell me.”

Gage lifted his shoulder. “Yeah, I imagine he figured he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, seeing as I took off after I found out what a gigantic prick he was, I imagine he figured he wouldn’t let you in on the secret. Losing one heir is a problem. Losing two just starts to look careless.”

“That’s why you took off? Because you found out what a terrible person Dad was?”

It was damn sure close enough. “Yes. I was poised to become king of his trash heap. And it wasn’t what I wanted.”

“And you think it is what I want? Did you think for one second what kind of position it would put me in? Mom?”

“No,” he said. It was honest. When he had taken off he had been eighteen years old, full of self-loathing and anger. All that had mattered was his pain. It had been unique to him, of course. And nothing anyone else could possibly understand. Because he had been eighteen. So, he had been a dick.

“Yeah, I didn’t think you did.” He took a deep breath. “Thanks for not lying about it, though.”

“There’s no point. I didn’t come back here to be the hero of the story. But I did come back here to take care of what I was asked to. Dad’s lawyer contacted me and said that I’m still the person Dad has written down to be the executor in case he was incapacitated.”

Colton shook his head. “I’ve been the one here taking care of things.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t messed up. I’m just telling you how it is.”

“So, now you’re going to step up?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s it? Whether I think you should be here or not?”

Gage pushed his hat back on his head. “Look. Nobody asked you. And I can understand why you’re not happy about it, but that doesn’t change anything. I have some things to take care of here, and I damn sure intend to take care of them.”

“What will that entail? Are you going to deal with Mom’s emotional fallout when she finds out that she’s destitute?” Colton took a step forward. “That’s what I’ve been dealing with. The fact that Mom is always one major incident away from a complete emotional meltdown. And Sierra is pregnant.”

“I know. I mean, I noticed at the hospital.”

“She’s a woman. When you left she was a kid.”

Gage’s face heated. He felt like a fire had started in his chest and spread outward. Anger, pouring through him like molten metal. “I know.”

“Madison... You have no idea what she’s been through. The things they say about her... She could have used you here. I could have.”

“What happened to Madison?”

“She’s going to have to tell you about it. You don’t get to come in and learn all of our secrets right off the bat. We’ve been here. Taking care of Mom, taking care of each other. All you took care of was yourself, Gage. So forgive me if I can’t just accept the fact that you’re here. And that you think you have a right to step in and start handling family business.”

Gage pressed his hand against one of the supports on the deck. “This isn’t about rights. It’s about responsibility.”

“You haven’t cared about responsibility at all in more than a decade. Why are you starting now?”

“Because I was asked to.”

Colton didn’t say anything to that. Instead, he rocked back on his heels, looking toward the inside of the house.

“That woman is your wife?” Gage asked, suddenly realizing that he didn’t know much of anything about his siblings. Beyond Sierra’s very obvious pregnancy.

“Lydia,” Colton said. “And yes. She is.”

“It doesn’t seem right that you’re married. I remember you being sixteen.”

“Hate to break it to you, but time marched on while you were gone.”

Gage suddenly felt hideously old. And a little bit like something that might be found on the bottom of his boot. But then, he imagined that that was Colton’s goal. He couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it.

“Yeah, I guess it did.”

“What exactly are you going to do? About that debt?”

“I’m going to sell off as much as I can. My goal is to preserve the business and the ranch. I assume you’re good with that.”

He could tell Colton was good with it, and more than a little annoyed that he couldn’t disagree. “Yes. I mean, that’s what I would do.”

“I don’t have a sinister agenda, here. All I want to do is what I was asked to. And then, I’ll get right back out of your life.”

“I don’t feel like Mom is going to be very impacted. Unless she goes through and counts all the assets.”

“I guarantee you the only thing she goes through and counts is her pills.”

His brother’s stark words hit him hard. He’d known their mother was fragile. He’d always known. But this...this hurt. “That bad?”

Colton shook his head, his expression suddenly softening. “She does her best. But, Dad was bad enough that you left. I don’t know what you’ve been out doing, but whatever, you had the skills to do it. Can you imagine being stuck with him? There’s nothing else for her.”

Horror streaked down his spine. “He doesn’t... He’s never laid a hand on her, has he?”

“It isn’t like that. But she’s stuck. She’s completely dependent. And he’s... He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. You know that. Everything is justifiable as long as Nathan West is comfortable. We found out about Jack this past year.” Gage had a feeling his mother had known a lot longer than that, but he didn’t see the point in correcting Colton on that score. “We all found out,” Colton continued. “Now her husband, who I think she hates as much as she loves, has had a stroke. And you’re back.”

“She doesn’t know that yet, does she?”

“No,” Colton said. “Stay away until we’re ready to deal with it.”

Gage took a step back. This command from Colton was more convenient than he’d like it to be. The edict to stay away from his mother, from his father, for a while suited him more than he’d like to admit. “You have my word on that.”

If there was one thing he was good at, it was staying away.

CHAPTER THREE

REBECCA WALKED OUT of her bedroom door and onto the deck, wrapping her fingers more tightly around her cup as she stared out at the lake. It was chilly this morning, mist hovering over the water and on her breath.

She shifted her grip on her mug, grabbing hold of the edges of her blanket and wrapping it more tightly around her as she settled into the wicker chair she had placed in just the right spot so that she could watch the sun rising higher over the mountains, illuminating the low-hanging clouds and throwing gold dust onto the lake’s surface.

She had a humble house, but there was nothing humble about the location. Nestled in the middle of the trees, way out of town, it was her own private sanctuary. She didn’t mind the rustic nature of the cabin, anyway. It was perfect for her. After working days in the store, it was important for her to have a retreat. And days off. She had finally graduated to where she could pay a couple of employees, and that meant two days off a week like a human person.

Today, she fully intended to revel in the time off. She could take her kayak out on the lake. She preferred riding to paddling, but since the shop had left her so busy for the past few years, owning a horse had been impractical.

Of course, for the past few years running a shop had not been compatible with having a life of any kind. But, things were getting better. She had leisure time today. And she felt leisurely.

She inhaled deeply, feeling the need to soak her coffee in through every sense. The warmth of the cup on her hands, the smell and the strong, bitter taste that burned all the way down.

The sound of an engine spoiled her solace. She leaned forward, pushing herself into a standing position and trumping down the side steps on her deck, rounding to the front of the house just in time to see a black truck barreling down her driveway.

Usually when someone random drove down to her house, they were just looking for a place to turn around. The road up to the lake was narrow and windy, and if you happened to miss a turnoff, finding a way to make it right was often difficult.

She felt compelled to stand there, and keep an eye on her unexpected guest.

But, the truck didn’t turn around. Instead, it stopped. And the driver killed the engine before getting out and revealing a man she herself would like to kill.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as Gage walked toward her. He was wearing the same thing he’d had on the last time she’d seen him. Cowboy hat, tight black T-shirt and snug, well-worn denim. Again, her eyes fell to the tattoo on his forearm.

Then she forced herself to look at his face. It was grim. His mouth set into a firm line, his dark brows drawn tightly together.

“I wanted to talk to you about the shop,” he said. “And to see about getting a welcome to the neighborhood.”

“It’s not really a neighborhood, per se. Mostly, you’re in my driveway, and I need you to not be in it.”

“I just bought the place across the lake.”

Rebecca was certain she blacked out. Her rage was an epic creature, rising up from the depths inside of her and threatening to consume them both. “You what?”

“It’s a coincidence that we’re so close to each other.”

“Sure it is, Edward Cullen.”

“What?”

“If you start watching me when I sleep, I’m going to shut your dick in the open window.”

“I have no interest in watching you sleep,” he said.

“Then what is this? What is all of this? If you’re interested in using me to appease your conscience, then you’re shit out of luck. Because I’m not going to provide balm for your wounded soul. I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I forgave you years ago when I didn’t. And I’m not going to suddenly grant you absolution now.”

He paused for a moment, looking past her, his eyes fixed on the lake. “That isn’t what I’m here for. I think you need a soul to be forgiven. I think you need a conscience in order to soothe it. I don’t have either. Not anymore. I’m here to make things right, though.”

“You can’t. So, you might as well stop trying.” She crossed her arms, staring him down. She didn’t owe him anything. Not reassurance, not some kind of absolution. Because, whatever he said, he must be after that.

“Let me finish what I started.”

“No problem. Right after you return full range of motion to my arm. My scar tissue is a little bit thick...makes it difficult to straighten completely.”

He didn’t flinch. And in that moment, she had to wonder if he was right. If he didn’t have a soul or conscience. But if that were the case, why was he back at all?

Of course, if he had either of those things, why had it taken him seventeen years to come back?

“You’re too proud to take help from me? Is that it?”

“Yes. I am too proud. I’m too a lot of damn things, Gage West. Everybody has monsters in their closet when they’re little. You were mine. You are the reason I was in physical therapy. The reason I endured months of recovery. The reason that I had to have more than one surgery to try and restore the skin on parts of my body.”

He tilted his head back, as though her words were physical blows. “I know.”

“And it doesn’t matter,” she continued, her voice shaking, “that it was an accident. It was an accident that could have been prevented if you would have just used a measure of common sense. If you weren’t driving too fast. If you hadn’t been horsing around with your friends, or whatever you were doing. And maybe it’s something that all teenage boys do, but when you did it, you crashed into me. And congratulations, you got to walk away. You got to walk right out of town and never look back. But I had to stay. I had to live in this body, and exist in your consequences.”

His eyes darkened, her words touching him for the first time. “You think I wasn’t affected? I changed my entire life because of that accident. You’re right. I was a spoiled, entitled, selfish ass who didn’t think of anyone but himself. I didn’t have respect for consequences. I didn’t think for one second what my behavior might do. I’ve spent every day since then thinking about it.” He looked down, brushing his fingertips over his forearm, over the dark band that was inked there. “This is a reminder.”

Rebecca was shaking. Rage all but consuming her. “That’s lovely,” she spat. “You got a tattoo. So that you would be permanently scarred by all of this too. Well, here’s a news flash for you: I didn’t get to choose a designer scar. I’m marked by it even if I don’t want to be. Even if I want to forget, I can’t. I’m so very glad that my suffering has become a monument to your change and betterment.”

“Would you prefer that I didn’t change at all?”

“I would prefer that I didn’t know a damn thing about you. I would prefer that I had no idea if you felt guilty, if you had changed or if you had drunk yourself into oblivion. Because I don’t want your life touching mine. Not again.”

If he had been human, he would have been reduced to ash by her rant. She was breathing fire. Instead, he simply lifted a shoulder. “I can understand that. But that isn’t the way things are working out. I’m back. I’m dealing with my parents’ property, and your building happens to fall under that umbrella. This is the situation. You can self-destruct because you hate me, or you can accept my help.”

She gritted her teeth, refusing to back down. “Where’s that self-destruct button? I’ll hit it now.”

“You haven’t had any trouble spending my money for the past ten years—I don’t know why you need to stand on principle now.”

A line of frost bloomed down her spine, leaving a painful prickling sensation on her skin. “I’ve never taken anything from you. And if you’re talking about that payoff from your father—”

“I’m not. When you were eighteen you received settlement money.”

“From the insurance company. From your insurance company. That was what the letter from the lawyer said.”

“Yeah. That’s because he lied to you. I sent you the check.”

“And the adjustments after that?”

“Also from me.”

Her knees wobbled, threatening to give out beneath her. She turned sideways, leaning up against the rough-hewn side of her house, trying to keep from collapsing onto the ground. She was such an idiot. But she had no idea how insurance worked. She had no idea how any of this worked. Not beyond the way it had worked for her.

She had gotten a letter from a lawyer claiming to work for the West family, along with a check for an obscene amount of money that had allowed her to cover the start-up of her store. Those payments had given her the livelihood she had, especially in the beginning. Without it, she would have nothing.

That meant that Gage West owned her business. He owned her. In every way that mattered.

Is it any different than if it were insurance money? Isn’t it all money off of your suffering?

It felt different then. Different when it was an arbitrary sum of money that Gage had decided to bestow upon her. Different when it had seemed like an insurance company had decided it was official damages, or something to do with her hospital bills.

Why did everything always come back to him? Why was everything so tangled up in the West family so that she couldn’t escape?

“No.”

“You can say no—it doesn’t make it different.”

“Why are you telling me all of this? Why are you here? What are you doing? I just... I don’t understand why you thought it would be a fun thing to come in and completely mess up my life again.”

“I’m not trying to mess your life up. I’m trying to give you something.”

“Do I look like somebody that accepts gifts?” She flung her hand backward, indicating her house. “I work for what I have. I always have. My brother and I... It’s a point of pride. When life got hard, my mother just sat down and took it, and Jonathan and I refuse to do that. We always have.”

Jonathan had always told her they couldn’t depend on other people to help them out. That no one cared what happened to a couple of poor kids, so they had to make their own way.

So they had. And they’d survived because of it. Not only that, they’d become successful in their own right.

Needing people...that would only leave you crippled when they walked away. And people always walked away.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me. What good is pride if you don’t have what you worked for?”

“It doesn’t have to make sense to you. It makes sense to me. You haven’t been in my life for all of this time, and you don’t have any right to walk in now and pass judgment on the way I’ve been living.”

“I’m going to sell off my father’s assets. It’s something that I have to do to save the ranch. I have to do that for my mother. While I was doing it, I wanted to help you. Instead of leaving you completely screwed in case somebody buys out your building and doesn’t want to give you any kind of fair terms.”

“It’s a little bit too late to worry about my well-being, don’t you think?”

He took a step toward her, and she pressed herself even more firmly against the side of the house. “You don’t need to be so stubborn.”

“Yes,” she said, peeling herself away from the wood. Because why the hell was she shrinking away from him as though she should be afraid of him? She wasn’t. She shouldn’t be. He had been a monster in her closet when she was a girl, but right now, he was just a man. And she was going to treat him like any man who was on her property when he shouldn’t be. “I have to be damn stubborn. Sometimes my stubbornness is the only thing that has gotten me through life. And I’ll be damned if I back down just because you showed up and told me to.”

“That’s where you have yourself a problem. Because I’m not exactly known for my easy disposition and temperament.”

“Are you actually fighting to give me something? I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t have to understand, just be reasonable,” he said.

“No. I don’t know how to be reasonable. I only know how to be right.” This, this right here, her inability to give on anything had gotten her in trouble more than one time over the years. But life was hard, so she had to make herself harder. She didn’t regret it. She didn’t regret learning to insulate herself from hardship. It was a necessity.

“You don’t want to be in debt to me, that’s your main issue. But the way I see it, you already are.”

“Get off my property.”

For once, he complied. Turning away from her and heading toward his truck. She watched him get in, watched him drive away. And then, her knees did give out. She slid down the side of the house, shaking, feeling every inch like the little wimp she was.

The fact that she wasn’t stronger than this was a blow. At least she had held her own when he was here.

Her head was spinning. She was trying to work out exactly what all this new information meant. Gage West was her benefactor. The man she attributed the ruination of her life to was actually responsible for the way that she lived now. He was the reason she had a business. He was the reason she had a house. He was the reason that she had enough money to hire employees and was now indulging in a completely ruined day off.

It all started with him. Even though her business was completely self-sufficient now, without that injection of cash, she wouldn’t have any of it. And yes, whether it should or not, it mattered that it was from him and not from the insurance company.

Like the monster had reached out of the closet to offer a piece of candy for everything he’d put her through. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to be bound to him. Didn’t want to be tied to him completely.

There was only one option. Only one option that was acceptable to her, anyway.

She dumped tepid coffee out into what would be flowers, if she ever bothered to plant any. Then she took a deep breath. She was going to get dressed, and then she and Gage West were going to meet on her terms.

* * *

GAGE HAD BEEN going over paperwork for hours. The text on the page was starting to wiggle, numbers beginning to reverse themselves. He was not a paperwork guy. He had a brilliant understanding of numbers and how investments worked. It was the reason he had any money to call his own. And he had quite a lot of it.

But, having a good head for business often meant knowing exactly which tasks you needed to farm out to other people. And that was another area he was expert in.

He had people to take care of the actual act of investing, people who managed his finances. Meanwhile, he continued to work with his hands whenever he could. Most people who had come into contact with him over the past few years probably imagined that he was destitute. And, he couldn’t really blame them. He tended to live in motels; he traveled from place to place; his truck wasn’t anything to write home about.

Of course, he’d owned this property on the lake for years. But no one knew that. He bought everything through a shell company and had his attorney handle all of his business. Finding caretakers for the place and everything else. He bought the house about a decade ago but had never actually lived in it.

It was the kind of place his father would find far beneath West family standards, but to Gage it was much better than the places he’d been staying while on the road.

It was rustic, but spacious. The property had a couple of outbuildings on it, including a barn that was housing horses for an older couple who weren’t in town half the year. His caretaker had taken care of them while he’d been gone, but he wouldn’t mind a chance to handle horses while he was in town.

Of all the things he’d done while he’d been wandering the country, rodeo and ranch work had been his favorite. And staying mobile had been a great way to keep ahead of his demons.

He wasn’t entirely certain what had prompted him to buy a place in Copper Ridge. Only that some part of him wanted to own a piece of it. Wanted to have a foot in it.

It was a difficult place to let go of, even when you were desperate to do it. But, it was all working out now. In that way that shit shows could work out. Which was definitely what this was.

He pushed his fingers through his hair and walked over to the kitchen window, looking out at the lake, barely able to glimpse Rebecca Bear’s house where it was nestled in the trees across the water.

He could totally understand why she felt like she was being stalked. In some ways, he kind of was stalking her. In order to get her to stop being so pigheaded and take the store. He supposed he could sign it over to her, and then there wouldn’t be much she could do about it. Except maybe refuse to sign her part of the deed. And then shoot him in the face.

His doorbell rang, and he could not for the life of him figure out who it might be. Maybe a neighbor with cookies. A neighbor who had no idea who he was. Because it sure as hell wasn’t a member of his family, or anyone else who had a clue that he was the disgraced Gage West.

His father had done a damn good job covering up what had happened the night of Rebecca’s accident. Nobody knew that he had been racing some friends on a back road and hit a car carrying a woman and her daughter. But, they did know that he had abandoned his family. They knew that he had left his fragile mother and a father who was endlessly generous to the community.

Gage West was nobody’s favorite. And he knew it.

He crossed the kitchen, heading into the entryway, jerking the door open without bothering to look out the window and see who was standing there.

When he saw his dark-haired, petite visitor, he felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by a bull. “What are you doing here?”

Rebecca frowned. “I thought you might like to see what it’s like to have somebody show up uninvited at your place.”

“I’m not nearly as disturbed by it as you were. But, I am curious.”

“I don’t want to owe you,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I see you have a working ranch here.”

“Nothing major. Just a few horses.”

“Well, someone has to take care of them. Someone has to ride them. And there are bound to be other things that can be done around the property.”

“Are you offering to do manual labor in exchange for the multiple thousands of dollars that I gave you?” He was being an ass now, and he knew it. But then, he was often an ass, so he didn’t see why he should change it now.

“I know, it’s barely going to put a dent in it. But I’m going to do my best to work off my debt to you. And then, I will damn well buy that building from you. But I’m not going to owe you. The way I see it is this—I’m going to work, you’re going to knock some numbers off of the debt. And then, when all is said and done, whatever else I owe you can put into the cost of the building.”

He rocked back on his heels. “That isn’t quite how I saw it going.”

“Too bad. I don’t know what you expected to come back and find. I imagine you pictured some broken, fragile girl who was just going to get on her knees and weep at your unexpected charity. But that isn’t me. I’m not a crier. I’m a worker. And my life is my own. So, at the end of the day, I don’t want to owe you a damn thing, Gage West. At the end of this, we part ways, and neither of us owes the other a thing.”

He stared at her for a moment, his stomach twisting. This angry, strong woman, who was completely different than what he had imagined she might be, was offering him absolution in a way he had never considered.

Ultimately, he imagined that he was beyond forgiveness. And he stood by that. But she was right. This clean break could mean neither of them would owe anything to the other—it was the only way they could fully extricate themselves from each other’s lives.

He had never met her before. Not before this week. And yet, Rebecca Bear was the person who had affected his life more than any other. The reason he had made almost every choice he made in the past seventeen years.

And he could see that he was tied up in hers too.

So this could be the end. This could be the clean break. He would be a fool not to take it.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Rebecca. I’m going to be here for as long as it takes. And in that time you can work on my ranch and assist me with other things that might come up as I organize my father’s assets. Then in the end, we’ll draw up an agreement for the building, and I’ll sell it to you, and we will filter all payments through a bank.”

He stuck out his hand, and she just looked at it as though it were a snake. He watched as she curled her fingers into fists, but she did not lift her hand. He let his own drop back to his side.

She tilted her chin up, her dark eyes glittering. “Then, it’s a deal.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU AGREED TO WHAT?”

Rebecca rolled her eyes and shifted the phone so that she could hold it between her ear and shoulder while she finished spreading jam on a piece of toast. “Calm down, Lane. If I wanted hysterics, I would have told Jonathan.”

The idea of talking to her brother about Gage being back in town—living near her—and enlisting her services to help on his little ranch spread made her cringe. Well, especially because she had enlisted herself, not the other way around.

“I’m not being hysterical, but I am questioning your sanity. This guy rolls back into your life...”

“He did not roll back into my life. That implies that he was part of my life prior to leaving town. He wasn’t. We ran into each other once or twice. Literally, in the most notable case.”

“That’s not funny,” Lane said.

“It’s actually hilarious. Don’t police my humor. But, it’s a whole big complicated situation, and I just wanted to let you know that I was going over to his house to do some work this morning so that in case I went missing you would know that I was finally finished off by the man who started killing me seventeen years ago.”

Lane growled. “Again, not funny.”

“Lighten up,” Rebecca said, lifting her thumb to her lips and licking a bit of errant jam from her skin. “I’m just doing what I have to.”

“Sure. But in a cagey fashion. You haven’t exactly explained to me how all this works.”

She took a bite of her toast. “It just does.”

“Rebecca, I often find your unwillingness to share the details about your life slightly charming. You’re kind of a little lockbox, kind of mysterious and that makes you interesting. However, in this case I’m a little bit frustrated with the fact that you are associating with this man without fully explaining everything.”

She took another bite and spoke around the bread. “I don’t have time to explain this morning. I have to get to work.”

“You don’t have time to do this,” Lane continued, protesting sharply in Rebecca’s ear. “You barely have any time off as it is.”

“I have an overprotective older sibling, Lane. The position is filled, there’s no need for you to apply.”

“Sure,” Lane said, “except you haven’t told Jonathan. So, seeing as your overprotective sibling has not been informed, and is therefore not able to comment...”

“Because his comment would be vulgar at best, potentially homicidal at worst.”

“Because you’re being crazy.”

Rebecca shoved the last piece of her breakfast into her mouth and grabbed her thermos full of coffee off of the counter. “I’m not being crazy. I’m making the most of a bad situation.” Claiming her business for herself, trying to regain some kind of control in this situation.

She hated being out of control. She hated being needy. After the accident she felt like she’d been existing in a period of extended victimhood. Her body hadn’t done what she wanted it to do, she hadn’t had any decision-making power when it had come to submitting herself to another surgery, to another excrutiating recovery.

To being cared for by other people.

And, once their mother left, Jonathan had gone into overprotective older brother mode, and even though all of his decision making came from a good place, it was still overbearing.

“Fine. We’ll discuss this later. See you tonight at Ace’s?”

“Maybe,” Rebecca said, shrugging her jacket on and zipping it up all the way to her throat.

“At least text me so I know you aren’t dead.”

“Promise.”

She hung up the phone before heading out the door. She closed it tightly behind her, not bothering to lock it. Usually, she just kept it locked when she was home. If anyone wanted to steal her crap while she was gone, they were welcome to it.

She was more concerned about somebody assaulting her person while she was in residence.

Curling her fingers tightly around her thermos, she began to walk down her driveway. It would be much faster to drive over to Gage’s place, but she wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get there. Anyway, a little bit of time in her own head before she had to deal with him would be helpful.

She took a deep breath of the morning air, letting it sear her throat. Then, she took a sip of her coffee, letting out a long slow breath that turned into a cloud and drifted past her as she continued to walk quickly down her dirt driveway.

Wind rustled through the pines and the oaks, a few brown leaves fluttering down to the ground in front of her. She stepped on one, satisfied with the slight crunch that it made beneath her boot.

She found a simple kind of clarity in mornings like this. In her surroundings. It was one reason she liked living so far out of town. Too many people, too much noise and her brain ended up feeling cluttered. She had to have time to sweep it all clean again.

She looked up at the gray sky, at the pale yellow shadow of the sun trying to break through. She imagined it would all burn off around noon, treating them to a clear fall day, which was as rare as it was enjoyed by the people in this part of the world.

You had to cultivate a bit of enjoyment for gray and mist if you were going to live on the Oregon coast. Rebecca had always felt like it was part of her blood. She had been born here in Copper Ridge and had never felt the inclination to leave.

She kicked at a pile of leaves as she turned that thought over. She supposed that in some ways her life might have been easier if she had left. She wouldn’t spend her time tripping over as many ghosts. But then, she supposed that all went back to control.

Why should she be the one to go? Why should she run away from her home because some teenage asshole had scarred her for life—more literally than emotionally.

Her conclusion had been that she shouldn’t. And anyway, Gage had been the one to leave.

“But he’s back,” she said quietly, the words floating away on another cloud of her breath.

She reached the main highway and walked on the narrow shoulder, keeping an eye out for any cars that might be driving on the road. She doubted she would see anyone. It was still pretty early and unless people lived here, they didn’t really have a reason to be driving out this way.

She looked down, focusing on the white line painted onto the black asphalt, watching as one boot landed perfectly in the center, then the other, with each footstep.

She paused when she arrived at his driveway, taking another deep breath, relishing the scent of the lake, cool and damp, and the overriding sharp tang of the ocean that permeated everything, a constant reminder that it was there, even when it wasn’t in view.

Yes. This was her home. The Trading Post was hers, because she was the one who had built it up from nothing. If it had really been left up to Nathan West, it would be nothing. It would be nothing but a hollow shell. She was the one who had given it life. She was the one who was entitled to it.

She would be damned if Gage got to come in and make her feel like it wasn’t hers. She would be damned if she would be chased off. She had made that decision early on. Even while she endured somewhat pitying stares from the townspeople, those who remembered the circumstances surrounding her accident, and the general indifference of men that had forced her to cultivate a shell that was so hard she didn’t think anyone could get through it now. Even if she wanted to let them.

Feeling fortified, she continued on down the driveway, feeling gradually less fortified the moment his house came into view.

She loved her house, and she was proud of it. It was rustic and cozy and entirely perfect for one woman who lived by herself. But his place... Well, it was something spectacular. She had rarely had occasion to see the house up close, even though it was visible across the lake from her back deck. She’d known that it was impressive, she just hadn’t realized quite how much.

It was one of those fancy, two-story cabins with logs that shone like honey and a green tin roof that pitched at sharp angles, following the expansive sprawl of the house itself. There were large windows at the front that reflected the scene around her, and herself, in their shining surfaces.

She looked determinedly at the door, and not at the reflection of herself. The reflection that looked very small and ineffective in the vast open surroundings.

She was not ineffective. She was a warrior.

She repeated that mentally with her every step up the front porch and to the door. Then, she knocked sharply, twice, before wrapping both hands back around her thermos. Clinging to it as though it might offer some source of power. Her own little caffeinated talisman.

She waited. And then, at a certain point, she decided that he was making her wait. That made her grit her teeth in frustration. As if all of this wasn’t irritating enough, the man was playing power games with her.

Too bad for him, that kind of thing didn’t work on her. She had lived through hell. Nothing scared her anymore. Least of all monsters under the bed, in the closet or in the spectacular log cabin.

Just when she was about to knock again, the door swung open and her heart, stomach and every other organ in her torso plummeted down toward her toes, leaving her hollowed out and breathless. He was...well, he was shirtless.

And while she considered herself impossible to intimidate, she was, apparently, easy enough to shock.

She swallowed hard, doing her very best not to stare at that broad expanse of bare chest. At the dark hair that covered his well-defined muscles, thinning out as it reached his incredibly cut abs.

He was wearing jeans that were disconcertingly low, revealing chiseled lines that acted as an arrow, directing the feminine gaze down to the rather prominent bulge at the apex of his well-muscled thighs.

She imagined that this moment, this moment that seemed horrifically extended, was actually over quickly. That she wasn’t really standing there gaping at his body for a recognizable or measurable portion of time. She imagined that in actuality things were just moving slow on a scale of relativity at the moment. At least, she hoped so, because if not, she had just made a complete and total ass of herself.

Still, she found herself looking at that perfect body again. All hard lines and gorgeous skin and...not one single scar.

Unlike her own skin. Which was a guide to every injury, every surgery...

How was it fair that he looked like this and she looked like she did?

She forced her gaze up to his face and found it no less disturbing. Monsters, she decided, should be hideous. They should not be lean, finely honed examples of masculine perfection complete with an utterly offensive yet compelling tattoo on an equally compelling forearm.

They should not have sharp, hot blue eyes and curved sensual lips that put a woman in the kind of mind that began to wonder about how they might feel beneath her own.

But it occurred to her then, that maybe that was what made a monster like him so terrifying. He wasn’t repellent. He was the embodiment of all of her nightmares, and she should hate looking at him. But she didn’t.

Yeah, she wasn’t easy to scare. But that was damn scary.

“You took all that time to answer the door and you couldn’t find a shirt?” she asked, keeping her tone as hard and arid as possible.

“I took the time to find pants.”

“Allow me to thank you formally. Are you... Heading out soon?”

“No,” he said, offering no explanation beyond that.

“I thought that I was handling your ranch stuff because you were busy.”

“I am. But this morning I’m concerning myself with my own personal business, and that is all work that I can do in my home office.”

“Okay,” she said, feeling a little bit like she’d been punched in the head. “I can figure out all the stuff out here.” She waved her hand somewhat wildly, as if he needed the gesture to understand that she meant all of the tasks spread about across the property.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ll show you around. But I do need a shirt before I go outside.” He turned away from her slightly, then back. “Come in?”

“I’m good,” she said resolutely. She pressed her weight more firmly down toward the soles of her feet, completely determined to stay right where she was standing.

He said nothing. Instead, he turned away, closing the door behind him, leaving her standing there alone.

What exactly had she gotten herself into? Maybe she was crazy. Maybe Lane was right.

No. You’re reclaiming. It’s important. Essential.

Yes, it was. Protecting the part of the world that she had carved out for herself was the most important thing. Her home, her shop. And dammit all, her pride. She hated that she had accepted handouts from him without knowing it. She just needed to... Well, much like she needed to wipe her brain clean at the end of the day, she felt like she needed to wipe the slate too. Or she would never be free of it.

It would loom. And so would he. The monster she would never be able to vanquish.

She was here. She was vanquishing.

The door opened again, and this time, thankfully, he was wearing a tight black T-shirt and a black coat. “All right,” he said, “come this way.”

She followed him down the steps, down along a dirt road that led around back of the house. She wasn’t really sure if she was supposed to make conversation with him. Then, she decided she really shouldn’t care what she was supposed to do. There wasn’t a protocol for the situation. And it wasn’t on her to make him comfortable.

Of course, it would be nice if she could make herself comfortable, but that might be a step too ambitious.

“The horses are down this way,” he said, gesturing toward a stable that was clearly visible. “If you wouldn’t mind feeding them and taking care of the stalls, that would be helpful.”

“I’d like to come by in the evenings and ride too,” she said. “To make sure that they’re getting some exercise.”

“How often do you work your store?”

“Five days a week,” she said.

“And you want to come here every day and do some work?”

“I was working in the store seven days a week until recently. The fact that I get time off at all is kind of a strange new situation.”

“It seems like a lot.”

“Are you concerned for my well-being?” If he said yes, she was going to kill him.

“No,” he responded, hard and fast. “Just don’t want you to drop dead on my property.”

“Your concern is touching. With my last gasping breath I’ll send a text to one of my friends and have them drag me over the property line, would that help?”

“Yeah, if it makes you feel better.”

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said.

“You don’t know how to do ranch work? Because that presents a problem for our arrangement.”

“No, I don’t know how to talk to you like there isn’t something huge hanging between us. I don’t know how to talk to you like you’re a person.”

“You just do it, I guess.”

“Or,” she said, “I don’t. We could always pursue that avenue. One where I just get to work and you go do your work and we don’t have to try and communicate.”

“Works for me. How long are you planning on staying today?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t have to work today. So I figured I would feed them, clean them and take them out for a ride. So, I imagine I’ll be done around one or two.”

“Okay.”

Then, he turned and walked away from her, leaving her standing there in the middle of the muddy drive all by herself.

Well, that was what she wanted anyway. Now, she could get to work.

* * *

GAGE HUNG UP with his business manager and leaned back in his chair. It was strange to be in a house like this. Someplace permanent. He was accustomed to motels that catered as much to roaches as they did to their guests. He was also accustomed to doing a little bit more hard labor than this.

Letting Rebecca handle anything on his property went directly against his usual mode of operation. He needed physical labor to deal with his shit. Otherwise, he started to go stir-crazy. He had a good head for investments and money management, but it was boring as fuck.

It had also made him rich, so he supposed he couldn’t complain.

He heard a knock on the door downstairs and he abandoned his desk, taking the steps two at a time as he headed to the front entry. He half expected it to be Rebecca, so when he opened it and saw his sister Madison standing there, the shock hit him like a bucket of cold water over his head.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Hello to you too, jackass,” she said, pushing past him and walking straight inside. “Nice place,” she said, looking around. “Colton didn’t mention that. I imagine his general rage and anger at you prevented him from saying anything nice at all.”

“He’s mad at me, huh?”

She snorted. “Do bears poop in the woods?”

“I assume.”

“Then assume he’s pretty mad.”

“Everyone else?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and rocking back on his heels.

“Sierra is young. She’s also much nicer than I am. Colton is... Well, he’s as decent as cornfields and apple pie. Mom is as emotionally compromised as she ever was, and I think she’s...shocked. Yes, she’s surprised you came back.”

So Colton had decided to fill her in, Gage assumed. But she wasn’t asking to see him. He couldn’t blame her.

He was as surprised as anyone that he’d come back. But when he’d gotten that phone call, he’d known there was no other choice. Because he already knew there was no end to the running.

He’d been doing it for long enough that if there was an end, he would have found it. So he’d decided that maybe the only way to fix it...the only way to end that gnawing, desperate ache in him, was to go back.

So here he was.

“And you?” he asked. “How do you feel about me being back?”

“I’m reserving judgment.” She took another step, looking around the room, her eyes sharp, the same blue as his own. He remembered Madison as a little girl, and he could see nothing of the little girl in her now. “I didn’t exactly make it to this point unscathed. And believe me, there was a point in time when I really wanted to run away. Sadly, I couldn’t, because you already had. You realize, it puts a lot of pressure on the remaining children to stay put when someone else has already scampered off.”

“I imagine,” he said. He also imagined that whatever Madison had been through, it wasn’t exactly his situation.

“But, even saying that, I get it. I get why you left. I don’t know what happened, but I understand that sometimes things are just too hard. That this place—this place where everybody knows you—is just oppressive sometimes. I was seventeen, and I got involved with my dressage trainer. When I say involved, I mean I was having a relationship with his penis.”

Those words, so flippant and hard, had been chosen carefully, he could tell. To distance her, to distance him.

“Sure,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral as hers. “Those kinds of relationships make the world go round.”

“Indeed they do. And, when you’re a woman, they can make things stop altogether. He was married. Which, I knew, but of course I bought into that tried-and-true line about how he was going to get divorced, and she didn’t love him and she didn’t understand him like I did.” She laughed, but the sound didn’t contain any humor. “The only reason it’s even remotely forgivable is that I was so young I didn’t realize what a cliché it was. Anyway, I came out of it with a big scarlet letter, and he ended up doing just fine. In fact, he even stayed married. So, I was clearly the villain.”

“How old was he?”

“He was almost forty,” she said. “It’s entirely likely I have daddy issues.”

“That fucker is lucky I wasn’t here,” he said, meaning that down to his soul.

“But you weren’t. Anyway, the point is I have my own stuff, and my own reasons for doing the things that I do. That means that I’m probably your best bet as an ally in this family.”

“You said Sierra was nicer than you.”

“She is. And she’ll forgive you. Trust me. She’ll probably even hug you. But she’s not going to understand you. I have a feeling you and I were created out of the same end of the gene pool.” She looked at him, her expression expectant. And he wondered if she was waiting for him to pour out his heart. To confess all. To say exactly what he’d been up to for the past seventeen years, and what had sent him running in the first place.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Not today.

“How is Dad?” he asked.

“The same. Still in the hospital.”

“I’ve been going over the finances.” He watched her expression closely, and it remained smooth, impassive.

“We’re broke.”

“You aren’t,” he said. “Your business is doing very well. In fact, most everything that centers directly around the ranch, around what you and Sierra do, works very well. It’s just that overall the family is in a lot of debt. And if I want to save the ranch, I have to manage all of that as best I can.”

“Right,” she said. “But I don’t understand why you have to do it. I don’t understand why not Colton, or me. Not Sierra, because she’s about to produce progeny. But the rest of us. Why aren’t we doing it?”

“Because I’m done running. This is my responsibility, and I’m going to see it done.”

She swallowed hard, nodding slowly. “And after that?”

“Well, then I start running again.”

“That particular brand of denial is probably good for your quads, anyway,” Madison said.

“Well, that’s good to know.” He cleared his throat, a strange uncomfortable sensation filtering through his chest. “I’ll walk you out.”

Madison’s pale eyebrows shot upward. “Wow. Direct. I suppose I had better let you get back to all that brooding you seem to be so fond of doing.”

“Do you have anything else to say?”

“I always have something else to say, Gage. It’s best not to leave that door open.” Then, Maddy turned and walked out of the house. He followed after her, standing on the porch and watching her as she walked toward her sporty little car.

“No truck?”

“Do I look like I would drive a truck?” she asked.

“Colton and Sierra do, don’t they?” He recalled that from the hospital when he’d been there visiting his Dad.

“One of these things is not like the others. But I thought that maybe we might be.” She squinted. “I’m not entirely convinced we aren’t.” Then, she got into her car and backed out of the driveway. He watched her until she was gone.

Having his family around was...strange. It did weird things to his mind and his body. Leaving him feeling stretched and brittle.

There was always a vague sense of something pressing at the back of his mind. A part of himself that he had left behind in Copper Ridge. It was inescapable. It had proven to be so in all his years of wandering. It was one reason he was back now. One reason he was so determined to settle everything once and for all.

But this... This was different. Now, his family was real, not just a vague impression of a thing left behind. His siblings were right in front of him, the adults they had grown into and not the children they’d been when he’d gone.

And some jackass had taken advantage of Madison.

That made his chest feel tight, the sensation spreading up to his throat. He hated that. Hated the thought of her feeling alone. Feeling broken because someone had treated her carelessly.

Yeah, he’d always had that sense that part of him was still here in Copper Ridge, but in his head, those parts of him were young and innocent, and still under the protection of his parents. For all their father was flawed, he took care of his children, even if it was only to prevent scandal from spreading.

At least, he took care of his legitimate children.

Even when they didn’t deserve it.

He gritted his teeth, curling his fingers into a fist and slamming the side of it against the support post on the porch.

It didn’t take much to remind him exactly why he had spent so long avoiding this place. It was easy to be a martyr in isolation. To self-flagellate without the consequences of your abandonment staring right at you.

Hell, there was nothing he could do about it now. What was done was done. All he could do now was fix it, and then get the hell out of Dodge.

He looked toward the barn, toward where Rebecca Bear was currently working to pay off debt that in his mind she didn’t have. She didn’t owe him anything. But she was stubborn, and she had pride. He had taken enough from her. He wasn’t going to take that too.

He had left a hell of a mess in this town. He wasn’t sure it was possible to clean it up.

But, if he died trying, at least it wouldn’t be his problem anymore.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHE HURT EVERYWHERE. There was nothing like a day of manual labor to remind her that she had once shattered her kneecap. And broken her femur. And that doing too much seemed to tighten her muscles up around the bone and make everyplace that had ever been fractured ache.

She had never hated Gage West more than she did in this moment. Actually, that was a lie, she had hated Gage West plenty of times over the years. Too many to list.

But, she could clearly picture him while she hated him now. She hobbled over to the bar, leaning against it, trying to get as much weight as she could off of her leg.

“Beer me, Ace,” she said, pressing her hand to her forehead.

The bar was crowded. It was Sunday night, and no one was looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. So, instead of getting a good night’s sleep, they were obviously out playing darts and riding on the mechanical bull that Ace had installed about a year ago.

Recently, Ace had opened a more upscale place, but he could still often be found here at everyone’s favorite dive. The fact that he wasn’t here some of the time was strange though. Copper Ridge was a constant. A small, slow-moving community that didn’t often see change. But the last few years had brought quite a bit of it. Tourism was beginning to become a major industry, and while she was definitely grateful for that, it was also changing her beloved landscape.

Just a year ago Ace had been single, and flirting with everything that moved. Now, he was married and about to be a father. Not that it bothered her. She had never been interested in Ace that way. It was just... Watching other people, people like him who had never even seemed interested in such a thing moving on with their lives and finding a companion made her feel hollow. Unsatisfied in a way she rarely was.

The fact he had married a West made her feel even weirder. Because the Wests made her feel weird in general. It was like they were infiltrating everything.

Not that she held anything that had happened to her against Sierra, Ace’s wife. Sierra was at least five years younger than Rebecca and wouldn’t remember anything about the accident, much less have any culpability in the events surrounding it.

Still. It was the whole thing.

“You feeling okay, Rebecca?” Ace asked, setting her preferred brew down in front of her. She hadn’t even had to specify what she wanted. He knew.

“Just worked too hard,” she said.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever talked to anybody who suffered from that affliction before,” he said, winking.

“What can I say?” she responded. “I’m a glutton for punishment.” As she said it, she had to wonder if it was true. She nodded once, picking up the beer and lifting it to her lips as she turned away from the bar and headed toward the table where Lane and Alison were already sitting.

“Is Cassie coming?” she asked, sitting down at the table slowly, her muscles screaming at her.

“No,” Alison said. “Something about date night.”

“As if that sexy mechanic she’s married to is better company than we are,” Lane said, grabbing hold of the toothpick in her drink and lifting it to her lips, plucking one of the impaled cherries from it and eating it.

“That’s a fancy drink,” Rebecca said, looking down at her beer. “What’s the occasion?”

“Wanting to feel fancy.”

Rebecca doubted a cosmopolitan with an entire handful of cherries could make her feel fancy after today. “Well, I guess that’s fair enough.”

“You’re limping,” Alison said, her expression concerned. “Are you okay?”

She was annoyed that they’d noticed. “I’m fine.”

“Except this is probably related to the work you were doing today?” Lane asked.

“Maybe.” She looked resolutely at her drink and not at Lane.

“What did he have you do? Were you riding the horses or bench-pressing them?”

Rebecca scowled. “There was just more lifting than I anticipated.”

“What’s happening?” Alison asked.

Rebecca shook her head, and Lane shot her a sharp look, then spoke anyway. “Rebecca is working for the guy who caused her accident.”

“You’re what?” Alison asked.

Rebecca reached across the table and grabbed hold of the remaining cherry on Lane’s toothpick, then took the unnaturally red fruit and popped it into her mouth.

“Hey!” Lane groused. “Cherry-stealing bitch.”

“Loudmouth.”

“What is going on?” Alison asked, clearly unamused by all of the antics.

“Exactly what I said,” Lane said. “Rebecca has decided to work for the guy who caused her accident, and clearly she has put herself under physical duress doing it.”

“Why?” Alison asked. “Rebecca, do you need money? If you need money, you can ask us. I would much rather give you some. Or, put you to work mixing frosting.”

“I don’t need money,” she said, feeling like a cat that had been backed up against the wall. “There’s a specific thing that I have to work out. And it requires working for him.”

“Could you possibly be more cagey?” Lane asked.

“If I tried,” Rebecca said, her tone deadpan, “I suppose I could be.”

“I just don’t get it.”

“It’s complicated. I owe him money.”

“How do you owe him money?”

“It’s complicated!” A prickling sensation assaulted the back of Rebecca’s neck, and she looked up just in time to see Gage walking through the door of the bar. “Oh, great,” she muttered.

“What?” Alison asked.

“Nothing,” Rebecca responded. She stood up, taking a long drink of the last of her beer. “I need another drink.”

She made her way back over to the bar, too late remembering that everything hurt and walking across the space was an assault. “More beer,” she said to Ace, setting the glass on the countertop.

“What happened?”

She turned around, her heart thundering hard against her chest as her gaze clashed with Gage’s stormy blue eyes. “Nothing,” she bit out.

“Then why are you limping?”

Rage poured down through her like an acid rain. “Oh, I have a little bit of a problem sometimes with my joints. My bones ache. Not because I’m old, mind you. But because I sustained a pretty serious injury to my leg and sometimes after I work, the muscles tighten up and everything goes a little bit nuts.” She gritted her teeth. “I feel like you might know something about that.”

“The work is too much for you,” he said, his voice flat.

Ace came back over to the bar and set the glass down in front of Rebecca.

“Put that on my tab, Ace,” Gage said.

She grabbed hold of the beer, her heart hammering hard. “Don’t do that, Ace.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Gage said.

“I’m going to pay for the beer if you can’t figure it out,” Ace said, turning away from them and going to help another customer.

“I’m trying to work off my debt to you,” she said, “not accrue more.”

“I can’t buy you a beer?”

“I’m confused about why you’re talking to me.”

“I don’t like you limping like this. I don’t like that the work hurt you.”

“I didn’t ask for your charity.” She scowled. “In fact, I think I’ve made it pretty clear I want to blot your charity from the record.”

“You’re not doing the work anymore. That’s it. Not going to have you limping around town because you’re trying to repay something I didn’t want you to pay for in the first place.”

He was just so large, hard and imposing, looming over her, his face a whole thunderstorm. He made her feel small and vulnerable. Like she was out of control. And she hated it.

“It isn’t your decision,” she said, her voice hard. “I have some say.”

He shook his head, and she found her eyes drawn to the grim line of his mouth. She was fascinated by it. By the deep grooves around it that proved this firm, uncompromising set was the typical expression for him. She wondered what he had to be uncompromising about.

She shouldn’t wonder. She shouldn’t wonder any damn thing about him.

“Sorry to say,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “But you don’t.”

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” she said, keeping her voice low. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to them. They probably already were drawing attention. Pathetic, scarred-up Rebecca Bear talking to the tallest, hottest guy in the room. People were probably pitying her. Or wondering if he was asking for directions.

Heat washed over her skin, leaving a prickling sensation behind. Humiliation. Anger.

“You don’t think I feel bad about this? Do you think you’re the only person who lost sleep over it?”

“Well, I know I lost sleep. Recovery is a bitch.”

“I want to fix it. I want to make it right.”

“You can see the way that I’m walking today, can’t you? There is no making it right, Gage. There’s no fixing it. You can’t just make it like it didn’t happen. I’m not something you can just walk into town and put back together. I’m broken. That’s the beginning and end of it. And it’s my burden to bear, it isn’t yours. It isn’t fair. To wander around acting like you’ve been shouldering some of this for the past seventeen years when you just haven’t been.”

“The hell I haven’t,” he said, reaching out, wrapping his fingers around her arm and drawing her in closer to him.

His touch burned her, scorched her from the inside out. Her mind was blank, except for one thought. How long had it been since a man touched her? Anyone? She couldn’t remember.

“You can’t buy me,” she said, her voice low, shaking. And she wasn’t really sure if it was from rage, or because of the way he touched her. So firm and sure and completely unexpected. “You can’t throw money at this and expect it to go away.”

“Hey.” Rebecca turned and saw Ace standing behind the counter right next to them, his expression hard. “Is he bothering you?”

Of course Ace knew who Gage was. Ace was his brother-in-law. She wasn’t sure if anyone else in town recognized Gage West yet. And even if they did, they didn’t know the connection she had with him.

She doubted Ace knew either. But then, she couldn’t really be sure of what Gage had told his family, and what he hadn’t.

She pulled away from Gage, taking a step back. “It’s fine,” she said. She treated Ace to a hard look that expressed her to desire to have him go away.

She didn’t want him white knighting. She didn’t want anyone else enmeshed in this at all.

When he was out of earshot, Gage turned to her, leaning in slightly. “I’ve lived with it for the past seventeen years too,” he said. “Whether you want to listen to that or not, it’s true. Whether you think it’s fair or not, it’s true.”

“So, it sounds like you’re a big fan of being punished for your mistakes, then. Enjoy me withholding forgiveness.”

She didn’t even know what this fight was. Hating him for caring. Hating him for feeling some kind of responsibility for it. She shouldn’t know any of it, that was the problem. What she’d said to him earlier was the God’s honest truth.

She didn’t want to know his life. She didn’t want to know if guilt kept him awake. Didn’t want to know if he felt good, bad or indifferent.

This belonged to her. It was her pain. Her own personal tragedy. It had shaped everything she was, had disrupted her entire life in ways no one knew. In ways Gage West certainly couldn’t know.

Him feeling guilty...well, that seemed selfish. He wasn’t scarred up. His body was beautiful. Women didn’t look at him with pitying glances the way men looked at her. He didn’t have to deal with a terrible limp after a long day of physical labor. What right did he have to co-opt any of the suffering?

She should probably tell Jonathan what was going on. At least he could tell Gage to back the hell off. Except, she knew that she wouldn’t. Mostly because she wanted to handle all of this herself. It felt unwieldy and more than a little out of control, but she still didn’t want anyone else getting involved. Because her feelings were too raw. Too confusing. She didn’t know what to do with them.

She didn’t want to talk to Lane. She didn’t want to talk to Alison. She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She wanted to pick up a chair and break it over the back of Gage’s head.

Except she was too sore to do that. Because of him. Which made her want to hit him even more.

“I’ll be at your place tomorrow,” she said. “By six. Because I have to go in and work at the store afterward.”

“You damn well won’t be there.”

“I damn well will be, and if you stiff me out of my pay, I’ll make your life hell.”

“We haven’t even settled on a wage.”

“Make it a fair one!” She turned on her heel and hobbled back to her table, her heart pounding hard. She had no idea where all that had come from. All of that anger, all of that effortless rage. She wanted to stand there and scream at him forever.

She remembered her dreams then. She’d had all kinds of dreams after the accident. Some of them were about pain, and about more surgery. But then, after those dreams had faded had come the other dreams. Dreams of standing in an empty room, in front of a man whose face was hidden in shadow. And she would scream at him. Yell at him and hit him until all of her anger had quieted.

She would shout every detail of everything he had done to her. Emptying all of the toxic pain from her chest and pouring it into him.

She wasn’t going to do that in Ace’s bar. But she had a feeling she had it in her.

“Who was that?” Lane asked when Rebecca sat back down at the table. She had sort of forgotten that her friends were an audience for that encounter.

“That was him,” Alison said, “wasn’t it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She was starting to feel a little bit like a broken record. And like a terrible friend. She had never confided everything with them. She had never really confided everything with anyone. She didn’t like anyone knowing she was vulnerable. Didn’t like anyone to know that she was affected by what had happened all those years ago.

It was important that Jonathan not know how badly her injury still hurt sometimes, because he was already too protective for her sanity. It was important that her friends not realize what a ridiculous sad virgin she was.

It was just as important that everyone stayed a good distance away from the black hole of horrific nonsense that was the epicenter of her life.

“It was him.” Lane frowned. “He’s younger than I thought he would be.”

“How old did you think he was?” Rebecca asked.

“I don’t know. I just didn’t expect...that.”

Rebecca knew exactly what she meant. The tall, broad-shouldered, hard-bodiedness of him that just didn’t seem to be right or fair.

“It’s always the handsome ones,” Alison said, her tone decidedly bitter. “If evil men looked like the trolls they were inside, it would be much easier to avoid them.”

“I don’t know if he’s evil,” Rebecca said, not sure why she’d said it. He might as well be. What he’d done had changed her life forever. Ruined her life. If that wasn’t evil, she wasn’t entirely sure what was. Still, he wasn’t evil in the way Alison’s ex-husband was, and she couldn’t even pretend he was. “But, not exactly a nice guy.”

“Just be careful,” Alison said. “I know a little something about getting drawn into unhealthy relationships.”

“We don’t have a relationship. In fact, that’s why I’m working for him. I told you I owe him money. Apparently, some of the payout that I thought was from insurance came directly from him. I’m not comfortable with it. I want to make sure that I don’t have any kind of debt to him, and he doesn’t feel like he gave anything to me.” She was going to go ahead and leave off the complication of the store and the fact that he wanted to give it to her.

“That makes sense,” Lane said, frowning as though it absolutely didn’t.

“It does to me,” Rebecca said.

“I guess that’s what matters.” Lane looked down at her drink. “You owe me a cherry.”

Rebecca looked back over at where Gage was, leaning against the wall and brooding. He lifted a bottle of beer to his lips, and she felt the long slow sip inside of her. For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why.

“That’s all that matters,” she said, trying to convince herself.

She was going to show up at six o’clock tomorrow morning and she was going to work her ass off.

And nothing Gage West said or did was going to stop her.

CHAPTER SIX

JUST AS SHE’D said she would, Rebecca walked around the side of his house and toward the stable at exactly six in the morning. Gage was already out there, chopping wood and ready to jump into whatever work she thought she was going to do.

If she insisted on doing this, then she was going to have assistance. Whether she wanted it or not.

And you think this is the best way to mend fences?

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t exactly here to mend fences. Just to make the scales balance. Rebecca was never going to like him, and he wasn’t going to lose any sleep over that. There were a lot of people who were never going to like him. He hadn’t earned it.

“Good morning,” he said, swinging the ax down so that the head was resting on the ground and leaning his weight on it.

Rebecca startled, jerking backward and looking up, her eyes clashing with his. “What are you doing out here?”

“Chopping wood.”

“Clearly. But, why are you out here now doing it?”

“I’m going to help you with your work.”

She scowled, her expression turning feral. “The hell you are.” She grabbed hold of her long dark braid and whipped it over her shoulder. “You seem to misunderstand the point of what I’m doing here. This is not leisure time for me, neither is it some kind of therapeutic thing where I put myself in the path of the one person that I can stand the least. I can’t owe you.”

“Or,” he said, taking a step toward her, “you just want to be pissed.”

“Yes,” she said, her tone dry, “I live to be angry. And I certainly enjoy investing all of my thought and energy into you.”

“Then why won’t you just take it? I could get out of your life a hell of a lot faster if you would just accept my help.”

“I’m not going to,” she said, breezing past him and heading toward the stable.

“Are you always this stubborn?”

“Yes,” she said without turning around.

“Why is that?”

“It may surprise you to learn that I have dealt with a little bit of adversity in my life.”

“I’d like to ease that.”

She stopped, whipping around. “Not your privilege.”

“Does standing on principle ever get uncomfortable?”

“Standing in general is uncomfortable, asshole. Why is that?” She turned away again, her words hitting their target even as she continued on toward hers.

She disappeared into the stable, and by the time he entered behind her she was already holding a pitchfork.

“Are you going to stab me with that or are you going to start cleaning stalls?”

“It’s up for debate.”

He grabbed a hold of his own pitchfork, heading to a stall at the opposite end. “I’m still going to help. You have to get to work, and so do I. This is my property, and if you’re going to work for me, then you’re going to help me in a way that makes sense to me.”

She nodded once, her expression fierce. She seemed much more able to take orders than she was able to take charity. Even though, in his estimation, it would never be charity.

How could it be?

“Does Ace know?”

The sound of her voice on the other side of the stall surprised him. He pushed the pitchfork down into the shavings. “Does he know what?”

“Does he know that you caused my accident?”

“Nobody does.” The words fell flat in the mostly quiet room. The only sound was the horses swishing and flicking their tails and nickering softly.

That response made him feel...well, more ashamed than he had imagined it could. Everyone knew what she’d been through, more or less. She wore the evidence of that time all those years ago on her skin. He didn’t. And sure, he had left town, had left his family, but if he didn’t want anyone to know, then they wouldn’t know.

Rebecca didn’t have that luxury.

Her response surprised him more than his own did. “Good.”

“What you mean?”

“I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t really want anyone knowing my business. At first, I didn’t talk about it because of the hush money your dad paid. But, at this point, I’m just more comfortable with people not knowing the particulars.”

“Why is that?” He was genuinely curious. Curious as to what she got out of hiding the details. She could point at him, scream at him and have him strung up in the town square if she wanted to. And yet, she seemed to have no interest in it.

Well, she seemed to have an interest in screaming at him, but mostly in private.

“Maybe I don’t have a choice about whether or not people know I was in an accident. It’s pretty obvious. But I don’t need people to know everything about me. I don’t need them all up in that.”

“Distance,” he said. “I get that.”

“It’s hard to get privacy in this damn town.”

“Why are you here then?” He looked up, his eyes connecting with the wall that separated them.

“Because it’s my home. Why should I leave just because people are difficult? Or because you made things hard for me?”

She really was stubborn. And angry. He couldn’t blame her for either. “I suppose you shouldn’t have to.”

“I love it here,” she said, stubborn. “And I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished. People like me... We’re not supposed to be able to end up owning businesses.”

“People like you?”

“Poor people.” Her answer was simple and to the point.

“Who says that?”

“Everyone. Though, sometimes especially other poor people. It seems like people don’t want you to get too far ahead of yourself sometimes. Don’t want you to be too ambitious. They say it’s because you’ll only be disappointed, but sometimes I think it’s just because they’re afraid of being left behind.”

She was more comfortable with this. A discussion that wasn’t focused specifically on her.

“But you did it anyway.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m not exactly rich. But my business supports itself, and I have a house. I don’t know what else you really need.”

“A fancier house? Fancy car, vacations to tropical islands.”

“I live alone, I own a truck and can you imagine me on a tropical island? It’s not like I’m going to wander around in a bikini.” There was that bitter edge to her voice again.

“So you’re content. That’s pretty unusual.”

There was a long silence. “Yeah,” she said finally, “I guess I am. More content than a lot of people.”

“But also sort of angry.”

“I’ve earned that.”

He finished up with the stall and walked out into the main part of the stable at the same time Rebecca did.

“All right,” he said, “why don’t I help you get the first one saddled up?”

She glared at him. “I don’t need help with tack, thank you.”

“Well, since you don’t have a lot of time, what if I go ahead and get Deuce ready and we’ll go on a ride together.”

He could tell that she had no interest in that whatsoever, but that she also couldn’t figure out a position from which to argue. She didn’t have that much time, and she wanted both of the horses ridden, so she might as well accept his help. He could see all of that in the slight contortions of her facial muscles, her dark brows snapping together, the corners of her lips tugging down in a frown. That frown pulled at the scar tissue on one side of her face and he felt an answering pull inside of himself.

“It’s settled then,” he said, knowing that in Rebecca’s estimation it was far from settled, but that she wasn’t going to argue.

They got the horses ready to go and he watched as she got herself into the saddle effortlessly. She had been sore yesterday, but she seemed much better today, which was a relief to him. Watching her limp, knowing that he was the cause of it... Well, it really was no more than he deserved. And in this instance, he was the cause of it in more than one way. But she was also refusing to do this a different way.

“Where did you ride yesterday?” he asked, bringing his horse alongside hers as they headed up on the trail that went behind his house.

“I just went up this way,” she said, gesturing ahead. “I like the view. And... I like to ride. I don’t have a horse right now so...so this is nice.”

He could tell those words nearly choked her, so he didn’t acknowledge them. “How long have you lived up here?”

“I bought my house about a year ago. Before that, I lived with my brother, Jonathan.”

“What about your mom?” He wondered about her, because she had been the other person in the accident. Though, he knew she hadn’t been injured. At least, not to the degree that Rebecca had been.

“She’s not around,” Rebecca said, the words short and clipped, and clearly not an invitation for investigation.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“I’m not.” He could tell that she was. But hey, he knew all about complicated relationships with family.

The trail wound upward, going through a grove of evergreen trees, narrowing slightly and getting rockier. He hadn’t ridden out this way before, since he’d only just moved here. He missed being outdoors. It was the only therapy he’d ever gotten, and it had been more effective than talking to some doctor ever could have been.

When he’d first left Copper Ridge he’d had half a mind to work himself to death. And then, he’d more or less tried to ride himself to death in amateur rodeo events. Getting on the backs of bulls he had no business getting near, participating in a down and dirty, unregulated version of the sport.

It had never been about the money. It had just been about daring fate. It was what he’d been doing ever since he’d left. But he hadn’t found an answer there, and he sure as hell hadn’t found peace. So here he was in plan B. And he wasn’t really finding this all that much better.

Right now was okay.

“You like to ride,” he said, not a question, because it was clear from her ease on the horse and from the mildly more serene set of her shoulders that she was enjoying herself.

“People are terrible. They judge you based on how you look, they leave you, broken and bloody in some cases. Horses don’t. Horses are forever.”

“Oh, come on now, Rebecca. The horse would happily leave you broken and bloody in the right circumstances.”

“Maybe they’d leave you. Horses are excellent judges of character.”

“Is that so?”

“I’ve gotten a lot more scars from people than I’ve gotten from horses.”

He let that go. Let the barb hit. He had no call to be defensive, or to protest. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the trail ahead. He moved easily with the horse’s gait as he picked up the pace to get up the side of a rocky hill that spilled them out of the trees and into a clearing.

The view in front of them was endless, a patchwork of mountains that wove together, creating an endless tapestry of green. Clouds hung low around them, the mist the only thing that blunted some of the deep color. And beyond that was the gray, endless sea.

It made him feel small. Made him conscious of all the history that was contained in this land, more than just his own. He dismounted, leaving the horse standing as he walked toward the edge of the mountainside, letting the thick silence close in around him.

He heard the sound of feet hitting the ground behind him, and turned to see Rebecca moving toward him. “Going to shove me off?” he asked.

“No. That would be stupid. Then who would end up owning my business? Better the devil you are already dancing with, right?”

“Better to not be dancing with the devil at all, I expect.”

She shrugged. “Sure. But that’s the kind of option I’ve never been afforded.”

“What are your options, then?”

“Deal with the devil, figure it will cost you your soul. But maybe you’ll get something in return. Otherwise, just keep living in hell without getting anything in return. There’s really no decision to be made if you think about it.”

“There’s another option.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t care about anything. Doesn’t matter if you’re in hell then, or if you get anything in return.”

“You don’t care about anything?”

There was no good answer to that. Not one he liked. He wished he didn’t give a damn. The problem was he gave too many.

He looked out at the expanse of scenery, avoiding looking at her. At her face that bore the marks of his actions. It was a complicated question. If he didn’t care at all, he supposed all the things he’d left behind wouldn’t feel so heavy.

“I don’t have very many connections,” he said, because that much was true.

Just a bunch of people he used to know, people who had been in his life and weren’t anymore. He had never maintained a connection. When he moved on, he moved on. Whether it was from old coworkers, friendships or women.

He didn’t look back. He never had. He never went back to a place he’d been before either. The country was vast, and if you were willing to work with your hands you could do just about anything. And then, there was the financial stuff on top of it. He supposed he had the longest term relationships with his accountant and his lawyer.

“What have you been doing all these years?” The question was asked with more hostility than curiosity, and he had a feeling she was more annoyed with herself than with him in that moment. That she wanted to know anything about him at all.

“Everything. Construction work. Ranch work. Rodeo stuff.”

She nodded once, then turned away from him sharply, taking a step back toward her horse. Then, she pitched forwards, losing her balance and stumbling. He reached out, grabbing hold of her arm and spinning her as he tugged her back, bringing her up against his chest.

Soft breasts pressed against the hard wall of his muscles and when he looked down at her face he didn’t see her scars. Instead he saw luminous, dark eyes and full, tempting lips.

And as quickly as that heat overtook him, shame rushed behind it in an icy chill, cooling the instant, inappropriate attraction.

He moved her back slowly, making sure she was steady. “I imagine we better get back,” he said.

She nodded, her expression blank. “Yes,” she said.

They both got back on their horses, and on the way back, they didn’t make conversation. Instead, Gage spent the entire ride trying to convince himself that the burning sensation in his palm was all in his head. It certainly wasn’t from touching her.

If he needed to get laid, he could hit up any woman here. Except for this one. She was the last woman he should ever touch. He was here to sever ties, not make new ones. Here to clean up messes, not make things worse.

The biggest problem with that was, he didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to fixing things.

In fact, all he’d ever done in his life was leave things broken.

But he’d be damned if he broke Rebecca Bear any further.

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