Shelter Read online

  “No. I’ve talked to my mom briefly. She knows the glossed-over version of what happened and that I was injured. I can’t bear the idea of trying to explain any of it to my dad. He went out of his way to make sure I was strong, that I knew how to defend myself. He taught me how to fight and never give in. He’s the one who taught me to use a gun and how to handle myself outdoors.” He never wanted anyone to take advantage of me. He told me my looks would get me into trouble if I wasn’t careful. He didn’t need to know how right he’d been.

  “I feel like I let him down by allowing myself to end up in that situation.” Every single day I wondered what I could have done better, told myself I should have fought harder, but I was so used to skating through life without any struggle, I forgot how to protect myself. The memory of my helplessness and hopelessness made my skin crawl.

  I could see Sutton’s hands curl into fists on top of his legs and the way his jaw locked. He didn’t say anything, but Cy did. “Take it from someone who almost lost a family member to those assholes, all anyone who loves you is going to care about is that you’re still here. The scars don’t matter. The reasons why you ended up in that situation are irrelevant. The only thing they’ll focus on is that they still get to hold you, that you’re still around for them to love and take care of.”

  Sutton didn’t look at his brother, but some of the tension in his face lessened.

  I closed my eyes again and quietly told the insightful man, “You’re probably right. I owe them the opportunity to see that I’m doing all right.”

  Cy chuckled. “From where I’m sitting, you’re doing better than all right, Em. You are one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.”

  I whispered an emotional thank you that was drowned out by Sutton muttering, “It shouldn’t have happened. None of it should have happened.”

  I cringed, knowing he was right. If I hadn’t needed to stop, if I’d been stronger, faster, better, they wouldn’t have caught us. We wouldn’t have been sitting ducks ripe for the picking. It shouldn’t have happened and it was all my fault it had, which was something else I’d avoided telling anyone.

  “It shouldn’t have, but it did.” Cy’s voice was matter of fact and left no room for arguing. “None of us can go back in time, but we can move forward knowing what we almost lost. We can appreciate what we still have.” There was a warning there that was impossible to miss.

  The interior of the car lapsed into a tense silence and none of us spoke until the SUV rolled onto the dirt road that led to the ranch. Cy hopped out and opened the iron gates before driving under the massive, hand-carved sign that declared this beautiful piece of property belonged to the Warners. It took another twenty minutes on the bumpy, dusty road to reach the ranch house. The sun was setting behind the mountains and the lights on the outside of the house and the bunkhouses were already on. The tension in the car ratcheted up a hundred notches when a marked police vehicle came into sight. It was sitting next to a small, white car and Rodie was faced off against a very aggravated Leo. There was another woman standing slightly behind him, eyes locked on my friend as she waved her arms wildly.

  The other woman had on tiny jean shorts and a tight tank top. Her endless legs were encased in a pair of expensive-looking cowboy boots. Her hair was a bunch of different shades of blonde, piled on top of her head. She had on heavy makeup and there were black streaks running down her cheeks indicating that she’d been crying. She looked like a low-rent version of Carrie Underwood. She was both pretty and tragic at the same time. I was just about to ask the guys who she was when Sutton climbed out of the SUV before Cyrus fully stopped. Cyrus swore and threw the car in park, not bothering to turn the ignition off as he followed his brother toward the house.

  I was torn about staying in the car, not feeling like I belonged in the middle of whatever was going on, but curiosity got the better of me when Leo lifted on her toes and pointed at the blonde woman, fury clear on her face. She took a step in the direction of the woman but the sheriff put a hand out to stop her. She was brought up short when Cy wrapped a thickly muscled arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest.

  Sutton bypassed the man in the tan uniform and stepped right up to the blonde woman who glared up at him defiantly. She crossed her arms under her breasts and I noticed the way they lifted and stuck out. Snidely, I told myself they had to be fake. Real boobs didn’t move like that.

  Quietly I made my way to Leo’s side, watching with wide eyes as Sutton laid into the woman who immediately started crying and talking loudly.

  “What in the hell are you doing here, Alexa?” His voice was shaking with anger and he wobbled a little as they faced off.

  “I want Daye. I know what happened at the Big Horn, Sutton. You’re supposed to be taking care of her, not your brothers. She should have been with me this week while you were in the hospital. She’s mine, not theirs.” The woman’s voice rose with each word and she leaned closer to Sutton the louder she got.

  His hands clenched again and his eyes narrowed. “She’s mine. You get her one weekend a month. That doesn’t change if I’m not here. The judge knows I have to go out on the trail for several days with work and she stays at the house. He still gave me custody.”

  “She’s my daughter, Sutton. She should be with me.” There was petulance in her tone that made her appear ugly no matter how pretty she looked.

  The woman lifted her hands like she was going to push him back, but Leo’s icy voice stopped her mid-step. “You touch him and I’m gonna have Rodie take you in on assault charges. I already told you that you’re trespassing. Don’t push it.”

  The blonde woman glared at my best friend. “Stay out of this, bitch. Just because you’re fucking Cy doesn’t mean you get a say in my family affairs.”

  “Watch it.” Sutton’s tone was threatening enough to send a chill down my spine.

  Alexa dragged a hand down her face and told him, “You watch it, Warner. I’m taking you back to court. It’s not fair that I lost my baby because I like to have a cocktail or two to unwind. You don’t get to pass out in public, cause a fight in a bar, and still be the better choice for her. You fucked up, and I will do everything I can to take you down.”

  Sutton tried to hide his cringe, but I noticed it and so did his ex. She gloated at him, her smile unpleasant and nasty. I was surprised this woman was his type. She was all sharp edges and razor-tongued. She was undeniably beautiful, but there was nothing soft or sweet about her. Considering he was such a hard man, I’d imagined him gravitating toward someone who would lessen the forceful impact he made. These two were gasoline and fire, explosive and dangerous when they were combined.

  “You’ll disrupt Daye’s routine over my dead body, Alexa. She’s finally settled. She finally feels safe. She feels at home and this is where she’s going to stay. She has family here and she’s surrounded by all different kinds of love. She never has to worry about waking up alone in the middle of the night. If I’m not here, she has both my brothers, as well as Leo and Brynn. Both of those women set a better example for her than you ever have. Get off my property and don’t come back. Next time you do, I’ll have Rodie arrest you.” He fell back a step and crossed his arms over his chest. I could see that he was slightly unsteady, that it was taking everything in his power to stay on his feet.

  Without being aware I was moving, I found myself next to his side, silently letting him lean on me. I wasn’t sure who was surprised more, him or me, when he did so without argument. The blonde woman regarded me stonily, her mouth twisting into a mocking grin.

  “I see your brother isn’t the only one who traded up to fancy city pussy. How long you think she’s gonna stick around, Sutton? A week? A month? Long enough for you to convince my little girl she has a new mommy, only to have her heart broken when the bitch takes off? Think about someone besides yourself, for once.”

  Alexa rocked back on her heels as Sutton suddenly lurched forward. He made no attempt to touch her, but his voice w
as low and furious when he spoke, and the first sign of color in days touched his cheeks as he growled, “I was only thinking of my daughter when I took her away from you. If you were half the mother you pretend to be, you would see her more than once a month and talk to her on the phone more than every few goddamn days. You want to put me in front of the judge again, do it. I’ve fucked up once in the six years I’ve been a father. How many times have you done something that gives that little girl nightmares? Get out of my face and get off my ranch, Alexa. You’re nothing but a joke.”

  The woman started crying in earnest again, but she wouldn’t let Rodie lead her away without tossing out a final threat. “I’m getting my kid back, Sutton. I’m not scared of you or your brothers, and I’m sure as shit not intimidated by those prissy bitches by your side. Whatever it takes, my baby will be coming back home with me.”

  Rodie walked her to the white car and stood by the door until she peeled out, leaving a cloud of dust behind her. The sheriff shook his head and made his way over to where Sutton was leaning heavily against me. I could feel sweat starting to soak through his t-shirt and the way his big body was shuddering against my side. I put an arm around his waist, aware Leo was watching every move we made with lifted eyebrows.

  “She demanded that I do a welfare check on Daye. She knew you were in the hospital and that everyone has been running back and forth to check on you. I think she thought she was going to catch you leaving the kid alone. I told her that was highly unlikely, but she insisted. Can’t deny someone a welfare check, so I drove up and found Daye happily eating dinner with Leo and Brynn. I should have known that she was going to show up and cause problems. She was demanding to see Daye and making a scene. I thought Leo was going to take a swing at her.” Rodie gave the redhead a reproachful look.

  My friend shrugged and snuggled back into the big man who was holding onto her. “I would have if Lane hadn’t come around the corner with those guests. The timing was bad. As it is, we’re going to offer that family from Oregon a discount.”

  Sutton seemed to give himself a shake and moved away from me. “I need to check on Daye. She always gets upset when Alexa loses her temper and causes a scene.”

  “Brynn kept her occupied as soon as Rodie verified she was fine and supervised. They’re upstairs playing a video game. I knew Alexa wasn’t going to go without some kind of fight.” Leo let out a huff but it turned into a muffled scream as Sutton crumpled to the side, clutching his middle as he suddenly doubled over, emptying the contents of his stomach all over the ground.

  Cy rushed to his brother’s side, gently nudging me out of the way. “What’s wrong? Do you need to go back to the hospital?” He was worried as Sutton tried to wave him off.

  I cleared my throat and fiddled with the end of my braid. “The doctor told him he might experience some withdrawal symptoms now that his system isn’t being flushed with fluids nonstop. He’s gonna be in rough shape the next few days.”

  “Let’s get you comfortable, then.” Cy started to muscle his brother into the house assuring him he would bring Daye to him right away. Sutton seemed to ease when Cy told him he wouldn’t be able to keep her away once she knew her daddy was home.

  Leo told the sheriff goodbye and walked over to where I was still standing uncertainly. She bumped my shoulder with her own and quietly asked, “She’s a real piece of work, isn’t she?”

  I cleared my throat and nodded. “She wasn’t what I expected. I mean, she looks like she could be Miss Wyoming, but her attitude,” I shook my head. “I wasn’t prepared for that. Why would he stay with someone like her for so long? Why would he have a baby with her?” Sutton was a lot of things, but never once had I considered him a stupid man. He didn’t seem like the type who was mindlessly led around by his dick.

  Leo hooked her elbow through mine and led me to the wide, wooden steps at the front of the house. “He picked her because she’s from here and she stays. It doesn’t matter what the people in town say about her. It doesn’t matter that everyone knows she’s a drunk and a terrible mother, she won’t leave. After everything his mother put their dad through, and the way Cy changed when his ex took off on him, Alexa sticking around was all that mattered to him. It was all he could see. She’s a townie and doesn’t want to be anything else. He thought that was enough and they could make it work. It wasn’t, and eventually he realized he had to make some hard choices for not only his happiness, but for Daye’s safety. He was the only thing that kept Alexa in check, and now that he views her as the enemy, the woman has gone off the deep end. She’s dangerous. The boys underestimate her, but I don’t. She’s still in love with him. She still thinks he belongs to her and uses Daye to manipulate him and keep him in her life.”

  Leo’s tone was wry and pointed. She was speaking from personal experience and knew first-hand that women could be just as devious and deceitful as men.

  “A pretty face can hide a lot of ugly things.” The words came out more wistfully than I meant them to.

  Leo bumped my shoulder with hers. “And sometimes a pretty face doesn’t even come close to the real beauty that is inside someone.”

  My entire life I’d been told I was beautiful, that I was prettier than those around me, like that somehow made me special and deserving of more. When my face was destroyed, even for that short amount of time, I’d noticed that people treated me differently. That I was suddenly no more or no less than anyone else. It was eye-opening, and it made me realize I needed to work harder to earn the things I wanted.

  If staying here is what it would take to get what I wanted, then that’s what I would do. I would also heed Leo’s warning that Alexa was dangerous, because underneath all that anger was a woman who was hurting and regretting everything she’d thrown away.

  She had nothing left to lose, and that was enough to make anyone a threat.

  Some Days are Harder than Others

  Sutton

  The next couple of days passed in a feverish blur. I couldn’t keep anything down and everything hurt. My skin felt like it was two sizes too small for my body and I was shaking so hard I swore I could hear my bones rattling against one another. I spent more time curled up on the bathroom floor than I did in the bed my brothers had moved to the main house. I tried to put on a brave face for Daye, but it didn’t really work so great. Everyone had resorted to telling her I was sick with the flu, encouraging her not to get too close so she wouldn’t get sick. My little girl was happy to have me back under the same roof, but I could see that her mother’s visit had unnerved her. She was unnaturally quiet and asked me no less than ten times if she was going to have to go back to Alexa’s apartment in town until I felt better. It was already a fight to get her to go when it was her mom’s weekend. The idea of going when she wasn’t scheduled had Daye tied up in knots. No matter how much I reassured her that she didn’t have to go anywhere she didn’t want to, she was still sulking around the house. I was too weak and too out of it to be of any help. I couldn’t thank my family enough for stepping up to the plate and promising my little girl they wouldn’t let anyone take her from her home.

  I was also hallucinating.

  At least, I thought I was. A few times during my delirium, I swore Emrys came in the bathroom and sat on the cool tile floor next to me. In the dream, Em would put my head in her lap and stroke my sweaty hair until I relaxed. Every time I opened my eyes to ask what she was doing, I found myself alone, lost in my own suffering, condemning myself for wanting something so badly my mind started playing tricks on me. I hated waking up curled in a ball, insides feeling like they were trying to make their way outside. I also hated that it was the idea of Emrys in my space, in my life, and in my head, that was twisting me up as much as coming down from the booze and painkillers. The thought of her was what offered me the comfort I craved, but I didn’t want to feel better because of her. I was far too accustomed to feeling worthless because of what I had let happen to her. My tormented mind couldn’t handle the idea that she was t
he one thing that might be able to soothe the fiery regret and guilt that tore at me every minute of every day.

  I’d spent five days sweating out the last of the tremors and shakes. My stomach finally settled slightly, and I could stand on my own without feeling like I was going to fall. When I looked in the mirror, I still cringed at what I saw. My skin was a ghastly gray instead of the deep tan that usually colored it this time of year. During a few moments of lucidity, I’d asked Cy to help me shower and cut my beard down so that it was nothing more than golden stubble that covered my chin and cheeks. With the face full of fuzz gone, I looked gaunt and haggard. My eyes were sunken into my face, dull and vacant. My lips hardly had any color. The red spots on my cheekbones made the hollows underneath even more prominent. It wasn’t a pretty picture. It was uncomfortable seeing how drastically my shitty coping methods had affected me. I looked like a man on the brink of losing everything. I looked like someone who had given up and given in. I looked just like my father after the third time my mother left him—the last and final time.

  I groaned at the comparison and felt a heavy thud in my chest when I realized the harmful patterns I was repeating; I splashed some cold water on my face and brushed my teeth. It didn’t do much to put any life back in my eyes, but it did make me feel slightly more human and convinced me I could face the concerned looks from my family when I ventured out of my room for the first time in days.

  It was late enough in the afternoon that Daye would be at school. Lately Leo was the one who picked Daye up. She was the one who had been meeting with her teachers when they were concerned about my daughter getting behind on school work. She was the one who signed Daye up for ballet and took her to classes twice a week. She was the one sitting with her working on her homework before dinner each night. She was the one promising my daughter I would be back to my old self before she knew it.

  When Leo first showed up on the ranch, I never would have imagined her as someone my taciturn brother would be attracted to. She was too loud. Too cold and standoffish. I never would have guessed her heart was twice the size of our ranch and strong enough to take on all of us Warners and our issues. She gave my kid the stability she so desperately needed, showed her what a real mother should be like and did it all without question. She wasn’t taking care of Daye because she was my brother’s niece and my kid. She was doing it because she wanted my daughter to be happy and feel safe. She was there for Daye because she knew what it was like to have a mother who never bothered to show up. I owed Leo more than I could ever repay, and I would be forever grateful for everything she has done for my daughter without throwing me to the wolves in the process.