Runaround Page 5

  As he was prone to do, Webb defied all my expectations. Instead of teasing and taunting, he was steady and reassuring. For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was suffocating. I was still a shaking, nervous train wreck, but somehow, his unwavering calm and the warmth of his touch kept me from melting down.

  “The only two things I’m scared of are flying and needles. I hate going to the doctor almost as much as I hate this.” I let out a shaky breath and slowly turned my head so I could look at Webb. His head was bent toward me, his eyes filled with concern and compassion. He was big and broad enough that even the considerably larger, first class seat was dwarfed by his size. He didn’t appear to have much extra room. However, I found the way he filled the space comforting. Whenever I breathed in, I inhaled Webb’s scent. He smelled like pine and something dark and mysterious. It reminded me of the woods where I worked. It took me to all the hidden places far away from everyone where I managed to hide.

  “Not worried about spiders or snakes?” There was humor in Webb’s tone, and I almost purred when his palm slid up my back and stopped at the neck. His strong fingers gave the tense muscles a squeeze as his thumb pressed a hard line into the top of my shoulder. Had I not been so anxiety-ridden over this trip, I would’ve melted into a puddle at his feet.

  “I work in the wilderness. I run across snakes and spiders more often than I run across humans.” Often they were less deadly.

  Webb chuckled as he continued to stroke my neck. “I hate snakes. They were everywhere around the swamp near where we lived when I was little. To this day, anything that slithers sends me running the other way.”

  Taking a breath, I forced myself to sit up straight. I thought the motion would have Webb dropping the hold he had on me. Instead, he used it to tug me closer. Our noses were almost touching, and I was so close I could see the stray bolts of silver shot throughout his blindingly blue gaze.

  “You okay?” His concern was sweet, and it sent my insides into a slow slide. All morning, I’d remembered how he looked when he walked out of the bathroom half naked. I knew he was fit, there was no disguising the way his biceps bulged or the way his strong thighs and perfect ass flexed when he walked. I hadn’t been prepared for the more-than-a-six-pack, the honey-colored skin, the light dusting of golden hair that flared across his sculpted pectorals and narrowed down between a perfect V into the waistband of his low-slung jeans. He was a walking wet dream, too hot to handle, and he knew it. He knew I was staring, that I couldn’t look away if I wanted to. I didn’t. I could’ve stared at him all day. More than that, I could’ve touched him for hours. I wanted to memorize every line and dip of his body with my fingertips.

  Blushing, I nodded. “I’ll be fine. Just keep me distracted.” It wasn’t a terribly long flight to Austin from Denver. Close to two hours. It shouldn’t be a challenge for Webb to keep my mind off the fact I was hurtling through the air in a hollow, metal tube. “You grew up in a swamp? Where exactly?” I needed a distraction . . . I also needed to know more about his past so I could help save his future.

  Webb made a noise low in his throat and leaned back in his seat. When the flirty flight attendant swung by to check on us, Webb ordered a bloody Mary and got me another vodka and soda. Apparently talking about his childhood required some liquid courage. Once we had our drinks, Webb looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

  “Nothing about my childhood was normal. The first memory I really have is of Wyatt pulling a chair across a filthy kitchen so he could climb on the counter and look for food. He was six or seven at the time, and already worried about how he was going to keep me alive. Our mom was never around, and when she was, it wasn’t good. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children; Jolene Bryant is one of them.” His deep voice dropped an octave, and there was a harsh rasp to it which indicated how hard this topic was for him to talk about. My heart throbbed painfully, thinking of the two little boys having to scavenge for food and fend for themselves. “We lived in a small parish outside of New Orleans until I was around nine. Mom had a small house, a shack, really, built on her family's land. It was far enough out of the way, there weren’t nosey neighbors or too many visits from the law. It was also close enough to the city that Mom never had a problem finding trouble. Wyatt and I played in the swamp pretty much every day. It wasn’t like Jolene bothered to buy us toys or take us anywhere. I don’t know what she did that was bad enough to have her family turn their collective back on her, but she packed Wyatt and me up in the middle of the night and ran like the hounds of Hell were after her.”

  “Sounds terrifying.” I couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose everything at such a tender age for no apparent reason. My family had been on the land bordering the Warner’s ranch going back to Manifest Destiny. Our roots run deep. So deep it was almost impossible to pull them from the Wyoming soil. It’d felt like I was going to die when I struggled to pull mine free so many years ago.

  “The first time it happened, I was scared to death. She wouldn’t tell us where we were going or how long it was going to take to get there. She made us leave the little we had behind. Wyatt was so angry. No one interfered with him taking care of me in the swamp. He was scared someone was going to separate us, that someone was going to notice what a shit parent Jolene was. All we had was each other, and he wasn’t about to let me go.” Webb seemed to sink into the memories. His gaze went a little unfocused, and the hand resting on the back of my neck stopped gently rubbing and tightened to a nearly painful hold. “We didn’t stay in the new place very long. Jolene set up a pattern of behavior. We would blow into a new town, she’d find herself whatever kind of trouble she could, and we’d leave in the middle of the night. We never stayed in any one place for more than a couple years.”

  He sighed and leaned his head back on the seat. “Wyatt hated it. Hated changing schools, trying to figure out how to survive in a new place over and over again. When he was a teenager, he told Mom we weren’t going with her anymore. I was just a kid, and he’d been more of a parent to me than she ever had. He got a job delivering pizzas and tricked Mom into signing a lease on a crap studio apartment in the ghetto. He moved both of us in and promised me we wouldn’t have to move again. Jolene drifted in and out of our lives for a couple of years after that, Wyatt started talking about joining the military, and I did whatever I had to in order to make sure I stayed with my brother.”

  He let his hand fall, but I caught it in mine before he could curl it into a fist to match the other one clenched on his leg. I brushed my thumb over his knuckles and watched as a muscle twitched in the curved line of his jaw.

  “Mom popped up one afternoon when Wyatt was at the apartment with his boyfriend. He was a nice kid, liked Wyatt, despite all the weirdness of our home life and the fact he was pretty much raising me. It was his first sense of normalcy. It was the first time he’d let someone other than me in. Jolene lost her mind. She was a fucking nightmare, but she was also at her core an old-school southern woman brought up in a very narrow-minded way. She flew off the handle. Scared the crap out of Wyatt’s boyfriend, threatened to kill him, told him she was going to burn him alive. He bolted and never spoke to Wyatt again. But Jolene had plenty to say. She accused Wyatt of being unnaturally attached to me. Called him a pervert and a pedophile. She came unglued when he told her point blank he was gay. She tried to attack him, but by then, both Wyatt and I had filled out and learned to fight back. He kicked Jolene out of the apartment and told her never to show her face again. She left, but not before promising to have Wyatt arrested. He never did anything wrong, but he freaked. This time when we went on the run, it was just me and Wyatt. He dropped out of school, and both of us spent a lot of hard months living on the streets avoiding any kind of law enforcement and authority figure.”

  I couldn’t stop the gasp that tumbled out. My fingers tightened on his hand involuntarily, and I knew the minimal color I’d gotten back in my cheeks was now gone. “You were homeless? As teenagers?” It was horrible an
d so unfair. My insides twisted uncomfortably thinking about everything both Bryant boys had been through.

  Webb nodded. “Yeah. Wyatt was scared Jolene had convinced the cops to arrest him. We were young and stupid. At the time it made sense. Eventually, Wyatt got his GED and joined the Army.” He cleared his throat suddenly and shifted his eyes away from mine. I watched in amazement as a hot, red flush worked its way up his neck and into his face. “By then I’d hooked up with a woman who was a lot older than me. I’d learned how to use what I had to get what I needed. She didn’t care if I was barely educated and a petty criminal. All she cared about was the fact that I was pretty and could fuck all night.”

  I tried to keep my expression bland but I was slightly horrified by his confession. I was angry he was put in a position to be victimized in such a way, even though I doubted he would see it in that light. He would call it surviving. His confession helped me see his careless flirting in a whole new light. He wasn’t used to being taken seriously by the opposite sex, so somewhere along the line he’d stopped trying to forge any kind of real connection with anyone.

  “I promised Wyatt I would be fine. He’d already given up so much for me. I refused to weigh him down any longer. I stayed with her until I managed to squeak through high school. By then she was bored and looking for another toy anyway. Wyatt figured out his path in the Army, and I never regretted doing what I had to do to get off the streets and send him off. I guess I’m still looking for the road I’m meant to be on. I never stopped hopping around from place to place, and unfortunately, Jolene’s knack for finding trouble seems to run pretty strong in my genes. I hate that I take after her as much as I do.”

  It was a lot of very heavy, dense information to process at once. I copied his pose, sort of flopped back in the seat, eyes not really seeing as my mind whirred in a million directions. I knew Webb’s journey to Wyoming hadn’t been an easy one, but I had no idea just how rough the road he’d traveled had been.

  “I used to dream about leaving home.” My voice cracked a little, so I reached for my drink. I was still holding Webb’s hand. I had no intention of letting it go. “My brothers never understood it. Why I wanted more than a constantly struggling ranch and a place with a single honky-tonk and one street light.” I gulped when I remembered the endless hours I’d spent arguing with my various family members about my future. “It was easy to let them believe I was chasing after a boy. For them, it made more sense for me to leave because Cyrus was leaving. None of my family could understand the need I had for a life of my own. When I left, I told them I wouldn’t be back, and I believed it.”

  Webb turned his hand over, so our palms were pressed together. He laced our fingers together, and I felt the warmth from the simple gesture shoot up my arm.

  “Coming back was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Most days I feel like a stranger in the house I grew up in.” It was uncomfortable and awkward. I told myself I was going to get my own place, but then I was admitting I was staying in Sheridan, that I was giving up on a different life. Every time I told myself I was going to look for a place away from my family’s ranch, I talked myself out of it. “I think I had an idea of what would happen when I came home. Cy’s first marriage had ended, we were both single, and we were both back in a place we didn’t want to be. I was sure this time things were going to work out. I honestly thought we would leave together once and for all.”

  Webb nudged my shoulder with his. When I forced myself to meet his gaze, I was surprised by the flash of sympathy I saw reflected there. “Didn’t work out that way, did it?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t think it was ever meant to. Watching him with Leo, Cy was never like that with me or his first wife. She really does bring out the best in him. It isn’t about where he is when he’s with her. It could be Antarctica or the middle of Castro in San Francisco. As long as he’s with her, it’s the best place on the planet. I was tied directly to a place he could never get away from, and when we were together, neither one of us ever forgot where we were or where we’d been.” I sighed and offered him a weak grin. “Our childhoods couldn’t have been more different.”

  He lifted our joined hands and pressed a light kiss to the back of mine. It was a small touch, a barely there brush of his lips, but the contact sent flames of awareness and desire shooting up my arm.

  “I wouldn’t wish Jolene on my worst enemy. Both our childhoods left us wanting. I’m grateful yours didn’t force you into a position where you had to do questionable things to keep your head above water. I think it’s pretty special you’ve always been one of the good guys . . . good women . . . good people. I haven’t met many people like you along the way.” He shrugged after running through all the options.

  His consideration made me smile. “I’ve never met anyone like you either, Webb. Every time I think I have you figured out, you throw me a curveball and I’m back to square one.”

  His pale eyebrows shot up and the grin he was wearing turned into something seductive and sexy. “If you want to round the bases, Ten, all you gotta do is ask. You don’t have to put that much effort into scoring with me.”

  I felt myself blush and tugged my hand free. I smoothed my damp palm down my jeans. This man got to me so easily. He set me off balance and scrambling to get myself under control.

  “You are such a flirt, Webb.” I tried to keep my words stern. They were breathless instead.

  “I am. But when I say that stuff to you, I mean it.” He turned his shoulders a little so he was facing me as much as the small space allowed. “Did I ever tell you, I thought you were a dream the first time I saw you? I was delirious, in pain, worried sick about Wyatt, and suddenly the prettiest girl in the entire world was standing in front of me, looking pissed as hell. I couldn’t figure out how I’d conjured you in the middle of the woods like that. You took my breath away, and I’ve been trying to catch it ever since.”

  No one talked to me like that. No one said those kinds of things about me, especially a guy who had his pick of bed partners. I wasn’t anyone’s first choice or the kind of woman they gave up everything for. My sharply honed defenses snapped into place, and my spine stiffened, so I was sitting straight as an arrow.

  “Listen, I want to help you. I’m here for you, and I will not let Gage pull his typical bullshit on you, but I’m not in any position to be your next sugar mama. I can barely take care of myself most days. I definitely don’t want to take care of someone else.” The admission faded out to nothing as Webb jerked back around in his seat and leaned as far away from me as possible. His jaw locked into a furious line, and I swear I could hear his teeth grinding together and his breaths whoosh in and out in angry puffs, making his nostrils flare.

  “First of all,” his words bit out hard as nails. “You aren’t that much older than me.” Six years felt like a lot for some reason, but I knew it would be insignificant if our roles were reversed. Cyrus had several years on Leo, and one of my brothers had married a woman a decade younger than him. Our age difference was an easy excuse to deflect him when I was feeling particularly weak. “Second, if you’d been paying attention at all over the last few months, you would’ve picked up on the fact that I’m the one trying to take care of you for a change. You’re too stubborn to see what’s right in front of you, Ten. It’s easier for you to keep me at a distance, to give me the runaround, so that’s what you do.”

  I wanted to retort that he had no idea what he was talking about, but just then the pilot came over the intercom, telling us we would be landing in twenty minutes. The entire flight had slipped by unnoticed while Webb opened the doors to his past for me.

  I dropped my head and panted my way through the landing, this time without the comfort of Webb’s touch and the sound of his soothing, rumbled promises that it would all be okay.

  It wasn’t easy to keep him at a safe distance. I worked at it very hard. He would never know how difficult it was for me to fight against his allure every minute of every day. And
I doubted he would believe me if I told him I was doing it more for him than for me. I didn’t know how to be someone’s dream girl. I was far more used to being the woman men settled for when they couldn’t get the one they really wanted. I was the one usually getting the runaround, not the one giving it.

  Webb

  We both only had carry-ons, so it was easy to grab our stuff and get through the Austin airport. We trudged to the rental car area, picked up the SUV I’d rented and drove the first fifty miles east, toward Loveless, Texas, without exchanging a single word. The tension pulsing between the two of us was like a living, breathing thing. I could feel the thorns of unease wrapped around us and the chill against my skin. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ten tugging on her lower lip as she purposely refused to look in my direction. For a split second, after she accused me of looking for another sugar mama when I turned my attention to her, I’d seen her desire to snatch the words back. She hadn’t. She also hadn’t offered up an apology, which was both frustrating and annoying.

  I hadn't shown her my soft, unprotected underbelly only to have her stab a knife into it and twist. I didn’t shake all my skeletons out of the closet so she could judge me for them. Those bones were dusty and long forgotten.

  The fact of the matter was, I’d always gravitated to people who were older than me. Wyatt was my best, and often my only, friend. He was four years older, but we were both wise beyond our years. When I was young and hungry, I recognized I was looking for a supportive figure in the older women who took me in. Sure, they wanted sex, but I was in it for totally different reasons. As an adult, I didn’t blindly let anyone offer me comfort and care, but I still drifted toward women who had a little more experience and were savvy about all the cruel ways the world worked. I like maturity and independence in the women I chase, and in the ones I let catch me. I wasn’t bullshitting Ten when I told her she was the kind of woman I dreamed about: unquestionably beautiful, but so much more. I liked that she was a fighter, a woman who stood her ground and refused to be swayed. I was also totally into the way she kept resisting me. I liked the challenge. Until she went from carefully evading me to forcefully pushing me away. I wasn’t going to apologize for my past to anyone. Not even her. It would be the equivalent of saying “sorry I survived,” and while I had regrets, I wasn’t disappointed I’d made it this far. I was pretty proud of the fact, considering how much trouble loved me.