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  I shuddered at the thought, and Cordell wrapped his arms around me on the dance floor. “What is it, babe? You look like you’re feeling sick all of a sudden.”

  “No, I’m good,” I lied. I was feeling sick, but I didn’t want to bring the mood down for them as well. “Let’s keep dancing. This has been such a great day. I’m not quite ready for it to end yet.”

  But even though it didn’t take long to get back into the rhythm of the music, I still couldn’t get my mind off what had happened in this town so long ago.

  I also couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that there were still people here in town who remembered Karrie. Her dad. Merle. Abe. She hadn’t just been a news story or a footnote in history to them.

  This town had ruined her life, and they’d had front-row seats.

  By the time we got back to the guys’ trailer, I felt like the mood had shifted. Which was honestly probably my own fault. My conversation with Abe had definitely put a cloud over the rest of the evening.

  There was something else, though. Something that didn’t have anything to do with Karrie or those old men at the retirement home.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked as I followed the guys into their trailer.

  They looked at each other in a way that told me everything was definitely not okay. What had changed? Sure, I was sort of down after that talk with Abe, but I thought I’d done a pretty good job of hiding it.

  Were they upset with me for some reason? Had I ruined their night and just not realized?

  “We’ve been thinking a lot about… well, everything,” Cordell began. He paused and gave another long glance in Dade’s direction, but Dade just gave a quick nod. Oh, God. Whatever was going on suddenly felt ten times more serious. “These past few days have been…”

  “They’ve been amazing,” Dade cut in. “We wouldn’t trade the time we’ve spent with you for anything. Ever. But… well, you’re different from any other girl we’ve ever known, Becca.”

  Great.

  Just what a girl loves to hear. How different she is.

  “O-kay…” I drew out the word slowly as I looked from one pair of serious eyes to the other. “I guess I’m not sure where this is going.”

  Cordell offered a slight smile. Was that a good sign? I couldn’t tell. “What we’re trying to say, Becca, is that we think you’re the one for us.”

  I blinked.

  Wait, what?

  Dade picked up where Cordell had left off. “I’ve never actually been in love before, but…” He paused and then smiled. “I can see a future with you. I can see things moving in that direction, and I guess we just both wanted to be up-front and honest with you. We’re ready to settle down.”

  “We want to build a life with someone, Becca,” Cordell said. “With you, if you feel the same way.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had been trying to mentally prepare myself for the thought that they might have been breaking up with me, but now… this? This was the exact opposite, and I wasn’t prepared at all.

  They wanted to make a life with me?

  “Here?” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around the idea. “In Bliss?”

  “At our ranch, yeah.” Dade nodded. “We’re going to get it fixed up, and it’s going to be so nice. Of course, you’ve probably got way better taste than Cordell or me, so we’ll get your input for some of the bigger things…” He paused and smiled again, bigger this time. “So, what do you say?”

  “Will you think about it, at least?” Cordell asked, a hint of a smile forming on his lips, too. “We didn’t know when the best time to talk about it might be, but this has been such an awesome day that we thought it couldn’t hurt.”

  “We want you to stay with us,” Dade said. “Maybe not in here. It’s a little small, even for two people. But we’ll be going back home sometime, and… we want you there.”

  I really didn’t know what to say.

  I was shocked. Just a few days ago, they’d told me that they weren’t interested in anything more than a fling. Then, that they’d thought about settling down eventually. Someday. Way in the future, maybe.

  But now they were sure? They wanted me? Could I even trust that they wouldn’t change their minds again in another week?

  And even if I could trust them—which I did, if I was being totally honest—then what? What kind of future did I have in Bliss? I still wanted a career. A career in science. A career I couldn’t have here.

  My throat felt tight as I tried to speak. My head was spinning, and I still didn’t know how I should answer or how I should feel. “I…” I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, then shook my head. “I can’t. I care for both of you, but… but I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  For several long seconds that seemed to stretch out to eternity, neither of them spoke or moved.

  Dade spoke first. “Okay,” he said, hanging his head.

  “Thank you for being honest,” Cordell said quietly.

  I could see the pain in their eyes. I could hear it in their voices. I hated that I’d been the one to cause that pain, but I still didn’t see any other way.

  The trailer felt way too small all of a sudden, like there was no air. I needed to get out before I said anything else. Trying to comfort them would probably just make things worse. And if they had to comfort me?

  I might give in and agree to something that would only end up making me unhappy.

  The worst part was that I could see a future with the two of them as well. Just… not in Bliss.

  Without another word, I turned and left. The tears were rolling down my cheeks before I even made it to the door.

  Chapter 17

  Becca

  I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Cordell and Dade at breakfast. Not after I’d seen the pain in their eyes the night before. Not after I’d spent hours in bed crying myself to sleep.

  Thankfully, Janessa hadn’t asked me too many questions when I’d approached her about driving the farm truck to town. Maybe she had seen the pain in my eyes.

  I dashed at my cheeks as I slowly drove down Main Street. God, how long would I feel like this? How long would I have to deal with spontaneously bursting into tears?

  I’d gone through breakups before, of course, but none of them had felt this bad. None of them had felt so consequential or so… so final.

  Not only had I shut down the possibility of a relationship with Dade and Cordell, but I’d also probably ended any hope of continuing a friendship with them. They definitely wouldn’t want to be around me after I’d turned them down like that. Not after they’d poured their hearts out to me and I had run away.

  I parked in front of the diner, but not because I was hungry. I was just tired of driving around and didn’t have anywhere in particular to go. It was hard not to wonder what the conversation around the Thoresons’ breakfast table would be like without me there.

  Were Janessa and Daisy Lynn asking uncomfortable questions? Would Dade or Cordell tell them the truth? About how they’d talked about building a future with me? About how I’d said no without even giving them the good explanation that they probably deserved?

  I couldn’t sit there by myself and think about it anymore. I turned off the engine and got out of the truck. Even though I’d technically be sitting alone in the diner as well, at least I’d be around other people. Strangers who didn’t know about the way I’d just treated those amazing men.

  What choice did I have, though? What if I had said I’d stay in Bliss, only to end up miserable? Feeling trapped in a tiny town with no opportunities was probably not the healthiest environment to start a brand-new relationship in. Especially a relationship with three people—something I didn’t know anything about.

  I sat down at a corner booth and ordered a coffee, then looked out the window next to me. Part of me was hoping I’d see Cordell and Dade pull up outside so I could tell them I’d made a mistake. So I could ask them to forgive me and if I could have a chance to take back the thin
gs I’d said the night before.

  Except… I hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. I couldn’t stay in Bliss. That was what it had come down to, and that was a deal-breaker for me.

  I couldn’t see that changing anytime soon.

  I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed Mavis until she slid into the booth across from me and heaved a grocery bag onto the middle of the table.

  Oh, God.

  Seriously?

  Was I being tested? Punked? Would there be a plague of locusts next?

  “Please.” I held up my hands. I was broken. I couldn’t fight. “I don’t want any trouble. Just… please go.”

  “Take the bag.” Her voice was cold but direct. At least she wasn’t shouting this time. Or trying to hit me over the head with anything.

  I looked at the bag on the table, then back at the old woman sitting uninvited across from me. “What is it?”

  She reached out and pushed it toward me. “Just take it. It’s not a lot, but it’s all I could put together on short notice.”

  I sighed and reached for the bag. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I seriously wasn’t in the mood. It was probably a bag of dog poop or something. Or a fish head. Wasn’t that what the mob sent people they didn’t like?

  Did Bliss have a mean old lady mob?

  But when I opened the bag and risked peeking inside, there wasn’t a flaming pile of poop or anything else disgusting waiting for me.

  There was, however, a big pile of cash.

  “What is this, Mavis?” I asked, pushing the bag back toward her. “I can’t take this. I don’t even want it.”

  “This is to ensure you keep your mouth shut,” she whispered so loudly that there was no doubt the other people around could easily hear. “If you won’t listen to reason, I hope you’ll at least listen to cold hard cash.”

  “Reason?” I almost laughed. My voice was rising, but I didn’t care. “Your idea of reasoning with me involved the business end of a cane, in case you’ve forgotten. And even if it was my silence to buy—which it isn’t, by the way—I have more pride than that. Your man might have been able to buy off Karrie’s father, but my morals aren’t for sale.”

  I moved to get up out of the booth, but she started scrambling after me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” She grabbed her cane and yelled so loud that it made everyone else in the diner turn to look. So much for keeping things quiet, hm? “I’m not finished talking to you, young lady.”

  “But I am finished with you,” I said, trying to move past her. She blocked the narrow space between the tables. “Mavis, you seriously need to move. I’m not going to put up with this today.”

  “You’re going to sit back down and shut your damn mouth,” she yelled, jabbing a bony finger in my direction. She took a step toward me, then stopped as a couple of the other people in the diner moved to cut her off.

  One of the people was Logan, the veterinarian. “Becca, come with me.” He offered me a hand as he stepped between me and Mavis. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I’d never been so happy to see the sort-of-creepy, socially awkward veterinarian. He had always seemed more at ease around animals than people, but here he was standing up for me and literally giving me a helping hand in front of half the town.

  “Thank you,” I said once we were outside the diner. “That’s the second time she’s come after me like that.” I shook my head. “At least she didn’t try to hit me with her cane this time, though.”

  He laughed like he thought I might have been joking. “That was probably coming next.” He pointed down the sidewalk. “My office is just right down there. You’re welcome to sit in there for a bit while she wanders off to terrorize someone else.”

  “Thanks.” I looked back over my shoulder and could see Mavis still struggling to get past the other customers to chase me down. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

  Logan’s veterinary clinic was like any other small-town vet—a small waiting area and then an even smaller exam room attached to an actual office and what appeared to be a room for surgery.

  “Come on back to my office,” he said, leading me through the lobby to the cramped office that was barely big enough for his desk, a couple of chairs, and an open safe that appeared to have various animal medications stored in it.

  “Now, what was that all about?” he asked after I’d been seated in one of the chairs. He propped himself up against the desk a few feet away. I didn’t love the way he towered over me as I sat there, but I wasn’t going to make an issue of it. Especially after he had just saved me from angry old Mavis. “I know Mavis is a little crazy, but she doesn’t normally go after strangers like that.”

  “She and I aren’t total strangers, unfortunately,” I sighed. “I ran into her the other day at the retirement home.”

  “The retirement home?” He frowned. “What were you doing there? Janessa Thoreson doesn’t have any relatives staying there, does she?”

  “No, I was there to see someone else. Murray Hofstadter.” I told him what I’d found out about the scandal involving Karrie and the boys who had attacked her. “I wasn’t expecting to find Merle Wright there, though. That was apparently what Mavis was so upset about. She’s still trying to protect Merle and actually thought she could buy my silence.” I shook my head, getting angry about it all over again. “Have you heard any of those names before? I know you’re probably not old enough to have known Karrie, but maybe you’ve heard something around town over the years?”

  It was a long shot, but I’d already told him the most important parts of the story. In a town as small as Bliss, everyone seemed to know something about what had happened.

  “I’m actually fairly new in town, so I hadn’t heard the names of her attackers before.” He paused, looking off into the distance as he ground his teeth together. “But I did know Karrie. I knew her very well.”

  There was a catch in his voice, and he seemed to be growing more and more agitated with each passing second. I swallowed hard and looked back toward the door. I didn’t like being in the small space with him still towering over me, but it wasn’t like I could just get up and leave.

  “Did you get a new shipment of Monensin?” I asked, my eyes falling on the open safe again.

  “What?” He gave me a confused look, then shrugged. “Not recently, why?”

  “Oh…” Now it was my turn to be confused. “I just noticed that you seem to have a whole shelf full, but you told Daisy Lynn that someone had broken in and stolen it all just a couple of weeks ago.”

  He blinked, then his eyes narrowed. “I must have had some more come in.” His words were clipped as he stood up and walked past me toward the safe. “That’s very observant of you, though.”

  I tried to stay calm even though I thought he was acting even creepier than normal. It was like a switch had flipped inside him when I started talking about the scandal—particularly when I’d mentioned Karrie’s name.

  That weird look. That weird catch in his voice. And what had he said? That he wasn’t from Bliss but he had known her very well?

  My stomach clenched as the realization washed over me. “It’s you,” I said, turning to look at him as he closed the safe. “You’re Karrie’s son… but the name…”

  “Yes, too observant for your own good, it seems.” He moved so fast I didn’t even have time to react. I felt a stinging sensation in my arm as he clamped a hand over my mouth and pushed me back into the chair.

  I struggled against him as the syringe he’d stuck me with fell to the floor, but he was too strong. “Too smart and too observant. But that’s okay. You gave me the names that I’ve been missing.” As he spoke, I felt my body start to go numb, starting with the arm he’d injected.

  Oh, God.

  Was I going to die?

  He took his hand away and I opened my mouth to scream, but it was like the muscles in my throat had stopped working. Even my tongue felt heavy and thick in my mouth. br />
  “Don’t worry.” He patted the side of my face, but I barely even felt it. “You’ll be fine in a couple of hours. That will be plenty of time for me to pay a visit to Merle Wright and then…” He shrugged. “Then I’ll figure out how to make all of this look like an unfortunate accident. What do you want them to write on your police report? Accidental overdose? Or maybe we’ll leave it a mystery, hm?” He smiled. “Decisions, decisions. Don’t fret, though. I’ll come up with something good. Now, sit tight and I’ll be back after your little nap.”

  I saw him walk toward the door as I felt my body slide down the chair. My eyes were still open, but my vision was starting to narrow.

  Nobody knew where I was. Nobody would even start looking for me until it was too late. There was just one thought that kept repeating in my head as the darkness finally started to close in.

  I was going to die.

  Chapter 18

  Dade

  “This trailer isn’t big enough for you to keep pacing back and forth,” Cordell muttered, giving me the side-eye from where he was sitting on the sofa.

  “She should be back by now,” I said, looking out the window toward the long driveway. “Why isn’t she back?”

  I honestly hadn’t been surprised when Janessa had said that Becca had gone into town this morning. Cordell and I had considered skipping breakfast ourselves just to avoid any potential awkwardness but in the end had decided to go and deal with whatever came our way. We were old enough to handle rejection in a mature way, after all.

  Plus, it was breakfast. We were hungry.

  But when lunchtime came and went and I still hadn’t seen any sign of the farm truck, I couldn’t help but start to worry a little.

  “She probably just doesn’t want to see us,” he said. “We’re going to have to accept it.”

  “I have accepted it,” I lied, shoving a hand back through my hair as I paced back toward the door again. “But I don’t have to like it. And anyway, it’s not like she would have to see us. She just… where could she have gone? How many times has she said there’s nothing to do in Bliss?”