And violence.
The corner of his mouth tipped up.
Tucker stared at him hard. “What the hell happened, man?”
Was that jealousy he read on Tucker’s face? “It seems Claire was mighty upset by something. So upset, in fact, that she beat the living fuck out of your truck.”
At that, Tucker laughed out loud. “She weighs a hundred and ten pounds dripping wet. How much damage could she have done?”
Christian scraped his fingers over his scalp. “Quite a bit with a baseball bat.”
Tucker’s eyes bugged out, and in a flash, he was on his feet and storming out the door. Christian didn’t budge from his spot, one ear cocked, waiting.
A howl of rage drifted in. A few seconds later, Tucker’s violent footfalls preceded the man.
“Holy—”
“I know,” Christian cut him off. “Question is what did you do to her?”
Tucker dropped abruptly to the sofa arm and buried his head in his hands. “I stood her up last night.”
Just as Christian had suspected. Instead of staying with one girl who he might fall for, Tucker ran out and found one to share with Christian.
“You’re runnin’ again.”
Tucker snapped his head up and he leveled his glare at Christian. Gaining his feet, Christian stared him down. Dammit, it was time to intervene. If Tucker wouldn’t come around and accept a relationship with Christian, he needed to at least set up house with a sweet little gal and have a string of horse-riding babies.
His friend clenched his hands into fists. “And you’re crossin’ a line.”
“Man, you can’t keep doing this. Running from these girls who might change your world.”
Christian’s stomach bottomed out at the memory of Claire’s words.I thought he was the real thing.
“Shut up, Davis. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and it’s none of your goddamn business.”
None of my business that you didn’t join in last night because your heart is in a relationship, even if your hard head won’t allow it?
“Yeah,” Christian said, brushing past Tucker on the way out, “it’s never my business.”
* * * * *
Still fighting the trembles of rage, Claire sank to the stool at the kitchen counter and watched her Aunt Letty flit from stove to refrigerator to microwave like a chickadee bouncing from branch to branch. It was impossible for Claire to see the woman who’draised her any other way. But the tiny frame of her aunt hid a strong spirit.
Letty assessed Claire out of the corner of her eye as she pulled a steaming bowl of buttered corn from the microwave. “Everything okay? You look a might flushed.”
Claire knotted her hands in her lap. She’d cried all the way home from The Hellion and gained calm just as she reached the big old house where she’d grown up. She should have known that Letty would spot her red eyes.
When she didn’t answer, Letty went on. “Man trouble.” Her dark, knowing gaze pinned Claire to the oak stool. She shifted, and the wood creaked, a wail that she couldn’t bring herself to make.
Letty turned to mashing a small pot of potatoes. Though there were only two of them, her aunt insisted on making a big, home-cooked meal, especially on nights when Claire had a midnight shift at the diner.
“I daresay that man went and screwed up with you,” Letty said.
“Yes,” Claire responded to her hands.
“Well, I’ve seen plenty of men practically begging to put a ring on your finger and hisboots under your bed. Your pa has been spared all these years from having to scare them off at gunpoint, as he’s rattled across the country in that semi-truck of his. But I’ve watched more than one man fall for Jake Mickelson’s little girl.”
Talk of her father sent a lump into Claire’s throat. Over the years, he’d hauled more loads from New York to California and Maine to Florida than Claire could count, working hard to keep his only daughter fed and clothed and given pretty much everything she ever dreamed of.
