Coulda Been a Cowboy
Dakota’s stomach growled as she passed the kitchen. She was hungry because she hadn’t felt comfortable helping herself to Tyson’s food without an invitation—and he hadn’t emerged from his office to give her one—but she didn’t have time to scrounge through the refrigerator for leftovers. If her father had somehow managed to get to the Honky Tonk, she needed to reach him sooner rather than later. He could get so belligerent, so violent when he drank. It had been tough taking care of him since the accident, but it was getting more so as time wore on. He wasn’t himself anymore. Sometimes he scared her so badly she didn’t know if she’d survive the next few months.
She rubbed the bandage that covered the cut on her arm. She was pretty sure she should’ve gotten some stitches, but she hadn’t dared seek medical care. If anyone found out her father had come at her with a knife, they’d insist she put him in an institution. Most people told her to do that already. But where would she get the money? He received a small check from the state each month but even combined with what Dakota earned, it wasn’t enough to pay for institutionalized care. Besides, she couldn’t abandon Skelton. It was because of her that he lived in constant pain.
Hesitating at the door, she threw her shoulders back and lifted her head. It’d be okay. She’d find him, and she’d bring him home where she could take care of him. He’d cried—literally broken down and sobbed—when he realized what he’d done last time. Surely he wouldn’t hurt her again.
TYSON DIDN’T KNOW what he was going to do. Braden had fallen asleep during the ride home and had stayed asleep as he was gently transferred into his crib, giving Tyson hope that they’d have an easy night together, after all. But it was only midnight, and the baby was already awake and crying. Tyson had changed his diaper and given him a bottle. He’d even tried the pacifier he’d bought at the store—which he’d boiled just like it said on the package.
Nothing seemed to work.
He considered calling his mother for advice, but he’d tried that last night and it hadn’t done any good. Priscilla Garnier, who was single at the moment and living in Phoenix, didn’t know what to do with a baby any more than he did. Her suggestion had been to put Braden in his crib and let him cry, and to get some rest, but that answer was completely unacceptable to him. He’d taken Braden away from Rachelle for neglect. He wasn’t about to follow in her footsteps.
“What do you want?” he asked the baby, so on edge he felt close to tears himself.
Braden’s face turned a deeper shade of red, and his mouth remained open but no sound came out.
“Breathe!” Tyson said in a panic.
Finally, Braden hauled in a breath and let go of another earsplitting wail.
That was it, Tyson decided. He had to call Dakota Brown. He hated to do it, especially in the middle of the night. But it looked as if she could use the extra cash, and no price was too high if it’d bring him and this baby some relief. He’d promise her another five hundred dollars, or whatever it’d take, to get her to come back right away. He’d been stupid to let her go in the first place.
He wanted to put Braden in his crib and shut the door, so that he’d be able to hear on the phone, but he didn’t dare. What if the monster quit breathing completely? Died of SIDS?
He continued to scream as Tyson carried him to the office. Dakota’s number was in a very prominent place—he’d made sure of that—so it wasn’t difficult to find. But instead of a sleepy voice on the other end of the line, he got a recorded message.
I’m sorry, this number has been disconnected. If you feel you have reached this recording in error—
What? She’d given him that number just today!
Had he dialed wrong? He thought that might be the case, but when he tried again, he got the same message.
Shit. Now what was he to do? He couldn’t keep pacing the floor. Something had to be wrong with Braden—and they were way up in the mountains in an unfamiliar state, completely out of Tyson’s element. He didn’t even know where to find a hospital if he needed one.
Grabbing the car seat, he strapped the baby inside—which wasn’t easy because Braden was straining and kicking so hard—then loaded his demon son in the passenger seat of the Ferrari and drove like a bat out of hell.
BY THE TIME Tyson reached the trailer park, Braden had cried himself to sleep. The silence was absolute bliss, but he knew better than to turn around. He wasn’t about to fall for the temporary nap trick. Anyway, the peace didn’t last long. Tyson could hear shouting the second he opened his car door.
At first he thought it was coming from the trailer next to Dakota’s. The light was on there, too. But he soon realized the neighbors were only awake because of the ruckus. He could see an old couple peeking through their blinds, trying to get a look at what was going on next door.
He was wondering himself. He couldn’t imagine the father Dakota had mentioned as having “health issues” using the kind of foul language that rang so clearly on the cool night air.
“Make him stop,” the old lady called out when she spotted Tyson. “Or I’m calling the cops.”
Tyson closed the door of his car before the noise could wake Braden. “What’s going on?”
“They’re at it again,” the woman answered.
“At what again?”
“Fighting! Can’t you hear?” the man said. “He gets drunk and goes after her every now and then, more often lately than before.”
“I swear, he’s gonna kill her one of these days,” the woman fretted.
Alcoholism was Dakota’s father’s “health issue”? Tyson nearly groaned aloud. What was he doing here? He was standing at the back of a neglected trailer park in the middle of the night in a town of about 1500 people, which he’d never visited before. And he had a baby with him. His baby.
God, how life could unravel. Maybe his grandfather had been right. Maybe he should’ve stayed in Montana where he belonged.
“Give me the keys!” a male voice roared. “Or so help me, Dakota—”
“Stop it! Dad, listen.” She attempted to lower her voice, but Tyson could still hear her. “You’re going to wake the neighbors. Then they’ll call the police. Again. Do you want to spend the night in jail? You have to calm down—”
“Don’t you tell me what to do!”
A scream and a thud reverberated through the air. Then a crash.
“What the hell?” Tyson sprinted for the door and, after flinging it open, found Dakota trying to keep a table between her and her attacker. A vase lay broken on the floor. Several strands of her long black hair clung to her T-shirt, as if her father had gotten hold of a handful and yanked it out. But it was the blood trickling from her mouth that enraged Tyson. Who was this old man to think he could get away with beating up his daughter?
“Sit down!” Tyson shouted.
The man who turned to face him had a yellow cast to his skin and a bulldog’s sagging jowls. He also had a mean glint in his eye, and he wasn’t pleased to see he had a visitor.
“Who the hell are you? Get out of my house!” He tried to raise the cane he’d been brandishing at Dakota, but Tyson wrested it from his grip. Mr. Brown wasn’t all that mobile. His feet were so swollen he could hardly walk. Had Dakota been out where she could run, she would’ve had no problem getting away.
Tossing the cane out of reach, Tyson grabbed the older man by the shirtfront, dodged a clumsy blow and shoved him onto the couch. “I said sit down.”
“Stop! You’ll hurt him!” Dakota cried, but Tyson was more concerned with what her father was saying.
“You little prick, I don’t even know you! Who do you think you are?”
“I’m your worst nightmare if you don’t stay put and shut up,” Tyson said. And then, just when Dakota’s father looked as if he’d get up and try to take another swing, he blinked and his rage evaporated.
“Hey, you’re…Tyson Garnier? The Tyson Garnier? What the hell are you doing in my trailer?” he asked, and laughed as though he hadn’t been trying to kill his daughter thirty seconds earlier. “Imagine that,” he said, sounding awestruck. “Tyson Garnier, right here in my living room.”
Tyson’s anger didn’t dissipate quite so quickly. “My foot’s gonna be halfway up your ass if you ever touch her again,” he growled.
Mr. Brown seemed befuddled. Then the confusion cleared. “Dakota? Oh, I don’t mean her no harm. She’s my girl. We have a blow-up every now and then. It’s tough having her tell me what to do. But she knows I wouldn’t really hurt her.”
Dakota avoided Tyson’s gaze. Her father had already hurt her. Tyson could see that her lip was swelling, and she had a scratch on her neck.
“Have a seat.” Mr. Brown waved magnanimously to an old vinyl recliner. “Dakota, can you get Tyson a beer?”
Dakota stared at her father. “He doesn’t want a beer, Daddy.”
“What else we got?”
“Nothing. I’m going outside to have a little talk with him.”
She stepped out, leaving Tyson standing in the middle of the cramped room, adrenaline still rushing through his blood. He wanted to do something more than he’d done—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place to teach Mr. Brown a lesson. And Dakota’s father was obviously a sick man.
Giving him a final glare, Tyson followed Dakota outside and waited through the apology she delivered to the neighbors.
“We’re tired of this, Dakota. You need to do something about him,” the old man said before he and his wife eventually turned off the lights and went back to bed.
Tyson expected Dakota to ask what he was doing at her house in the middle of the night. He was even prepared for her to be angry. He’d seen that sort of thing on TV, where an abused wife didn’t appreciate outside interference. But Dakota didn’t bring up what had just happened.
“Where’s Braden?” she asked.
“In the car.”
“How is he?”
Tyson drew a deep breath. “He’s having a hard night.” They both were. But after what she’d been through, he didn’t feel that he could complain.
“That’s why you came?”
“I tried to call. You didn’t tell me your phone was disconnected.”
A pained expression claimed her face. “It wasn’t when I left for the cabin this afternoon.”
“Maybe I dialed wrong,” he said, reluctant to pile more stress on her.
“No. I noticed it myself just before I went to bed. But…I’ll catch up.”
He handed her the five hundred dollars he’d withdrawn at Finley’s Market. Because the ATM would only allow him to get three hundred dollars in one day, he’d had to take it from two different accounts, but he had several. “This might help.”
She said nothing as she slipped the money into her pocket.
“Any chance you’d consider coming back to the cabin with me?” He scratched his neck. “I’m…not very good with babies.” After what he’d witnessed, he couldn’t leave her behind. But he thought it better to appeal to her sympathy than challenge her pride.
A police siren sounded in the distance. Dakota tilted her head in such a way that he knew she was listening. Then she pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll pay extra.”
She touched her lip self-consciously. “And if they see this, they might charge him with assault.”
He reached over and plucked the loose hairs off her shirt, being careful not to come too close to her breasts. “Maybe a good long stay behind bars would be the best thing for him.”
“No. You saw him. He’s not well. He can’t sleep lying down, reacts poorly to certain foods, has to have someone keep a close watch on his meds.”
“Is that why you stay?” he asked softly.
“That’s part of the reason,” she replied and went back inside. When she returned, she had a small bag, her purse and her keys. “Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Grandpa Garnier: You can just about always stand more
than you think you can.
DAKOTA SAT ON THE veranda of Gabe Holbrook’s cabin. Along with her purse and makeup kit, she’d already deposited her small satchel in one of the guest bedrooms, and she’d rocked Braden back to sleep when he woke up after they got home. But she wasn’t in any hurry to go to bed herself. She couldn’t unwind, couldn’t relax. She hoped to sort through her thoughts and emotions while listening to the cicadas and admiring the full moon, which seemed close enough to reach out and touch.
“You okay?”
She hadn’t heard the front door open, so Tyson’s presence surprised her. She’d assumed he’d retired for the night. “I’m fine,” she said, but her lip was numb and swelling from the whack her father had given her with his cane, and she could still taste blood from where her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek. “I’m thinking of going back.”
“What?”
She bristled at the incredulity in his voice, but she didn’t really have another option. For all she knew, her father was sitting in a jail cell. And, if not for the accident she’d caused, he’d be just like he was before—a sober, rational, good man. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“According to what your neighbors said, what happened tonight happens fairly often.”
“Not so often,” she argued.
“Once is too much.”
He was right, but there was a lot more to it than what he knew. “It’s complicated.”
“You want to explain it to me?”
The scent of the surrounding forest—wet earth, evergreen trees, cool wind—filled her nostrils as she hauled in a deep breath. “Not really.”
The floorboards creaked as he sat in the chair across from her. “You’re more guarded than anyone I’ve ever met, you know that?”
She laughed aloud. “And you’re an open book?”
He shrugged.
“According to People, you hide what you really feel behind a megawatt smile and slip out of the limelight at the first opportunity.”
“They don’t know anything about me.”
“I think that was their point. You don’t let anyone close enough.”
He seemed uncomfortable with that statement, but he didn’t argue with it. Getting up again, he moved restlessly around the porch, eventually leaning on the railing. “It’s beautiful here.”
She let him change the subject. They were employer and employee, and had only met this morning. They had no business getting into each other’s personal lives. “Gabe’s taken good care of the place.” She sank more comfortably into the chair Gabe had built when he was first learning to work with wood after he lost his football career. “He’s quite a man. Have you been to his shop, seen some of the furniture he’s building these days?”
The porch light brightened one side of Tyson’s face as he turned. Only the subtle hollow beneath his cheekbone bore any shadow. “You mean the store? In town?”
“Yeah. It’s across from his wife’s photography studio on Main Street.”
“I’ve been there, even bought a few things. It’s in a cool building.”
“An old one, built in the late 1800s. That used to be Rudy Perez’s cabinet shop before he passed away.”
“You know a lot about the people in your community.” Tyson made that comment as if he’d experienced the exact opposite, as if he didn’t know much about anyone. Which made her suspect she’d been right earlier: he didn’t let anyone close.
“I’ve lived here my whole life.” Sometimes she thought she’d never escape….
“Have you ever considered moving away?”
“Every day.”
Her immediate and unqualified response seemed to surprise him. “You don’t like it?”
“Can you blame me? I’m working at the pharmacy making eight bucks an hour. The folks who own it are wonderful, don’t get me wrong. They’d pay me more if they could. But that isn’t what I always envisioned for my life.”
“So what’s keeping you?” he asked.
She laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll give you one guess.”
“That’s a pretty big sacrifice for someone who just bloodied your lip.”
It was her turn to avoid answering. “I’m going inside. I need to call the police and see what’s happened to him.”
“I’ve already talked to them.”
His words stopped her before she could reach the door, and she whipped around. “They called here? And you didn’t tell me?”
Putting his back to her, he sat on the front steps. “I contacted them.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see what we could work out,” he said over his shoulder.
Dakota had never had anyone step between her and her father before. Most people muttered that she was crazy to stick around, or they gave Skelton disgruntled looks for how he sometimes treated her. Which only made her situation worse, because she was always in the middle, trying to defend him. But this was the first time someone had contacted the police for something other than to complain about the noise. “And?” she asked hesitantly.
“We made a deal.”
“You didn’t think to discuss it with me first?” Anger put an edge to her voice.
He twisted to face her. “I can’t imagine you’ll have a problem with it. It’s the best possible solution, for everyone.”
Spoken like a true egotist. He thought it was best, so it must be best. But if he really had an answer, she was eager to hear it. She’d been searching for a way out of her current situation for years. “I’m waiting.”
“They said they’d overlook what happened tonight if you’d stay away from your father in the future.”
“How’s that a solution?” she cried. “I’m the one who takes care of him. Half the time he doesn’t eat unless I prepare his food. And we can’t afford two households.”
He stood up, leaned against the pillar that supported the porch and crossed his arms. “I hired the brother of one of the police officers—a Terrance Bennett—to look after him in the evenings and at night when you’d typically be off work.”
“You what?”
“I hired some help.”
“For how long?”
“For the next two months. That way, you can stay here. If the arrangement works, maybe you can even go back to California with me.”
Dakota was speechless, torn between gratitude that this man, who’d only hired her today, would be willing to help her to such a degree, pique that he’d interfered in her situation without consulting her and excitement to think she had the opportunity to go to California. How hard could it be to raise one baby who would never want for anything, while living in a mansion—maybe on the beach—with a professional football player? Think of the places she’d get to see, the people she might meet…
Her mind raced with the possibilities. But she couldn’t leave her father. He was her only family. The woman with the heavy Spanish accent who’d called her all of two times in the past ten years didn’t count. She was a complete stranger. And what if he died while she was gone?
She massaged her temples, hoping to relieve the headache that had started from the blow she’d sustained to her mouth. She couldn’t turn her back on her father now. She was all he had. “I’m sorry. I can’t leave Dundee. I have to stay with him.”
“I just told you he’ll have someone looking after him.”
“It won’t be the same. No one else really cares about him.”
Tyson moved close and tipped up her chin, making a point of studying her fat lip. “You have nothing here.”
She jerked away. “I have my self-respect. If I turned my back on the one person who really needs me, I wouldn’t even have that.”
She started into the house, but he caught her elbow. “If you go back, they’ll put him in jail. They’ve had it, Dakota. I spoke to Chief Clanahan myself.”
“They can’t. I’m fine, so there’s no need. And he’s sick.”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll keep putting up with his behavior. He could really hurt you, and then they’d be partially to blame because they didn’t stop him when they had the chance.”
Her head was pounding too hard to make such a difficult decision. “So what do I do?” she asked. She wasn’t really talking to him—it was more of a rhetorical question to herself—but he answered.
“Stay here for a couple weeks. You can go into town every afternoon if you want—check in on him, make sure the new guy is doing a good job, cook his dinner, whatever. The fact that you’re not living with him should mollify the police and your neighbors. Then…we’ll see where things go from there.”
The warmth of his fingers sank through the thin sleeve of her blouse, but she doubted he even knew he was still holding on to her. “Is this really about helping me?” she asked skeptically.
He glanced at the house. “I need you and you need me,” he said simply and let go.
He was talking about Braden. She could tell he wanted to leave it right there, but she couldn’t. Lowering her voice, she asked, “If you didn’t really want him, why’d you take him?”
He stared at some mysterious point over her shoulder for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he spoke. “I had no choice.”
“You could’ve left him with his mother.”
“Then I would’ve lost my self-respect,” he said and went inside.
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR woke Tyson early. He scowled, but then something became apparent to him that quickly countered his irritation at being disturbed before he was ready. He couldn’t hear any crying. Not one cursed peep.
He opened his eyes and lay still for a moment, holding his breath.
Yep, no crying.
“God that feels good.” Rolling over, he started drifting off to sleep again when a second knock reminded him that someone was at his door.
“Come in.” His voice was muffled by a pillow, but Dakota must’ve heard him because the door opened, and she poked her head in. “You have a phone call.”
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I do?”
“It’s Greg Higgins.”
His agent. “Oh.” He fell back onto the bed. “Tell him I’ll call him later.”
“I already told him you weren’t up yet. He said it’s important.”
With Greg, “important” was always relative. He might be calling simply to pass along a compliment the owner of the Stingrays had paid him. Or it could have to do with Rachelle. When Tyson forked over the one mil in exchange for her signature on the custody papers, she’d agreed not to disclose the terms of their agreement—and it made Greg even madder than Tyson that she’d flagrantly disregarded that stipulation. They couldn’t fix it now, but maybe something else had happened. Or maybe she was trying to renege on their deal.
“Fine.” He reached for the telephone next to the bed, but Dakota spoke as his hand closed around the receiver.
“He called on line two, which I finally figured out is only in the office.”
“How’d he get that number?” Tyson asked.
“It must be the one you gave him.”
Which meant it had originally come from Gabe. Tyson hadn’t expected two lines. This was supposed to be a remote cabin.
When he started to get up, the door closed so fast Tyson startled, then realized he’d fallen into bed in just his briefs last night. When he’d thrown off the covers, he hadn’t even considered that his near nudity might offend Dakota. He’d lost all sensitivity to modesty after spending the past decade dressing and undressing in a locker room that allowed female reporters to wander through at will. But he found it interesting that Dakota had beat such a quick retreat.
He grinned at the memory as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and headed down the hall to the office. And that was when he caught the scent of bacon, eggs and…waffles? There was coffee, too. This was certainly a better morning than the one he’d spent yesterday. He couldn’t wait to gorge himself. He hadn’t had a solid meal since he’d picked up Braden.
The receiver was resting on the ink blotter next to the football player he’d drawn yesterday. He brought it to his ear and said hello, then realized that someone had added a number to the jersey on the paper. His number. Imagine that. Dakota had never mentioned football, and yet she knew his number.
“We’ve got problems,” Greg said.
Pasty-skinned and habitually nervous, with what he called a “power haircut” and football tattoos on both forearms that looked like a failed attempt to fit in rather than an extension of his own personality, Greg worried about everything, which drove Tyson crazy. But it was also one of the reasons Tyson kept him around. Tyson viewed life as one big picture; Greg minded the minutiae.