3. A Thinly Veiled Threat – Zoe
Chapter 3
A Thinly Veiled Threat
PLAYLIST: ”FORTUNATE SON” BY CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL
ZOE
My heart stuttered, and my chest squeezed so tight I couldn’t breathe. “You can’t honestly believe I killed her, Roman. I know I was horrible—I said terrible things to both of you that day—but surely you don’t think I’m the kind of girl who would kill her best friend?”
“No, baby. I don’t believe you killed Missy, but the sheriff’s department does, and that’s what matters.” Roman pulled the engagement ring out of its little velvet box and held it out to me. “Now, do you want me to tell the sheriff about that second fight with Missy, or do you want me to keep my mouth shut while we find a way to prove we didn’t kill her? The choice is yours.”
Hot tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them back as I stared at the engagement ring. “That ring is nothing more than a thinly veiled threat, and you expect me to wear it willingly?”
Roman shook his head, his hazel eyes darkening to almost black. “That’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart. This ring isn’t just a threat, it’s also a promise.”
My mouth went sandpaper dry. “Oh yeah? What’s the promise, Roman?”
Roman swallowed hard and squared his shoulders, like a fighter about to face off with an opponent in the ring, but when he spoke, his voice was impossibly soft and husky. “If you choose to wear my ring, I promise to keep that second fight with Missy as our little secret and never tell another soul. I promise to do everything in my power to protect Twisted Creek Ranch, and I promise to keep you safe, no matter what.”
I can’t believe this is real life. What is he even saying right now?
Sucking down a steadying breath, I speared Roman with a skeptical glare. “And what happens if we can’t prove that we didn’t kill Missy? What then?”
Roman reached out with his free hand and cupped my cheek, stroking his thumb over my cheekbone with breathtaking gentleness, though his eyes remained dark and steely. “If it comes to that, then I’ll take the fall to keep you out of prison, but the only way I’m doing that is with my ring on your finger.”
In that moment, I could have sworn I felt the earth wobble on its axis, as if it, too, was affected by the gravitational pull I’d always felt between us.
“One last question before I give you my answer.” I bit my lip and let my eyes fall closed, afraid of what I might see in Roman’s gaze if I kept my eyes open.
“What made you choose an emerald for the stone, rather than something else?”
Roman leaned closer, his body heat enveloping me as his lips brushed the shell of my ear. “You’ve always hated diamonds, baby. Did you think I’d forget? They’re colorless and boring and basic. You’re none of those things. Besides… the emerald matches your eyes. I thought it’d be fitting.”
Fuck. Even when he’s being petty and punishing me for the way I’ve treated him, I don’t deserve a man like Roman York.
Scalding hot tears spilled down my cheeks unchecked, and I sucked in a shaking breath.
“Look me in the eye, baby.” Roman’s husky rumble sent a shiver down my spine.
I shook my head, my tears falling harder and faster despite my eyes being squeezed shut. “How can I look you in the eye right now, knowing everything I’ve done and everything I’ve said? How can I possibly look you in the eye when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you’d really go to prison to protect me despite all the ways I hurt you before I left Blackwell?”
Roman took my left hand in both of his. “I wasn’t asking, Zoe. I was telling you… look me in the eye when you give me your answer.”
My heart pounded so hard that all I could hear was my own heartbeat roaring in my ears. After a moment that felt as if it might stretch on into forever, I forced my eyes open and met Roman’s unwavering gaze. My heartbeat turned erratic.
It would be so easy to get lost in Roman if I let myself. I can see that much by the bottomless depths that lurk in that piercing gaze of his.
I shuddered, every instinct in me screaming that I should run far and fast, before either of us had the chance to do irreparable damage to the other. “What if I don’t deserve your protection, Roman? What if?—”
“I didn’t ask you if you feel like you deserve the protection I’m willing to offer you. Deserving it has nothing to do with it. I just asked you to look me in the eye when you make your choice about whether or not you’re willing to accept what I’m willing to give you. That’s all.” His deep, husky voice was so carefully neutral it made my chest ache.
I gritted my teeth and squeezed his hand, wishing like hell he didn’t want me to look him in the eye while I answered him. Still, I conceded, giving him my gaze and my full attention.
“Yes. I’ll wear your ring, Roman, but make no mistake, this ring means I’ll accept your protection. It means I’ll help you stand up to David Michaelson. It means I’ll help you prove we didn’t kill Missy, but that’s all it means... nothing else.”
I can’t afford anything more than that, and neither can you.
Roman laughed, shaking his head with a wry grin. “I’d never expect you to accept anything beyond my protection. I know you well enough to know better.”
Sighing, I squeezed my eyes shut and tipped my head back, resting it against the truck’s headrest as Roman slid that beautiful, cold ring onto my ring finger. I could have done without him twisting the knife of truth in my gut quite so hard, though.
He’s never understood that I’m trying to protect him just as much as he’s always protected me. I know I don’t deserve a man like Roman. I never have, and I never will.
“Come on. Let’s go see how your dad is doing today.” Roman’s voice was soft and edged in regret, which told me he was reading me like an open book. I’ve always hated how easily he could see the things I worked so hard to hide from everyone.
We both clambered out of the truck, and Roman ambled around the front of it, pausing at my side for just a moment. As he started toward the hospital’s front entrance, I reached out and grabbed his sleeve, giving it an insistent tug as dread rooted me to the spot where I was standing beside the truck.
“What is it?” Roman frowned, covering my hand with his big, rough, callused one and gently stroking my knuckles with his thumb.
My lip trembled and my throat got impossibly tight, so tight I struggled to swallow the lump that had formed there. “I... I know I told you I want my answers from dad’s doctors, but... I just... I need to know how much I should steel myself before we walk in there.”
Roman’s expression softened, then, and pulled me into a hug, giving me a tight, reassuring squeeze. “I won’t lie to you, sweetheart. Your dad’s condition isn’t pretty. It’s not like he’s on a ventilator or anything like that, but... it doesn’t look good.”
My legs went spongy and my knees turned to jelly as the weight of Roman’s implication crashed down on me. I sank against his chest, choking back a sob.
Roman’s arms tightened around me, holding me up and stroking soothing circles over my back while I pulled myself together.
I shuddered, shoving the fears that tried to rear their ugly heads down deep, deep enough inside me I could pretend they didn’t exist at all. “I just need a second to reel myself in. I know Daddy wouldn’t want me going in there as a sobbing, snot-nosed, senseless wreck.”
“You don’t aways have to be strong, you know,” Roman said, his voice a soft, velvet rumble against my ear.
Roman stroked my hair, and it felt so good it nearly shattered the cold, hard sense of control I was using to shove all my fears and feelings down into a deep, dark oblivion. I clung to that sense of control like a woman on the edge of a cliff, holding onto it for dear life. I squared my shoulders and took a step back out of his embrace.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Roman. I’m an only child. I have to be everything, all the time, because if I don’t, no one else will. I don’t have a sibling who can be the strong, level-headed one.”
“You have cousins, though. They could help.”
“He’s not their dad, he’s mine. As much as I love my cousins, the responsibility of being the strong one and caring for Daddy falls on me.”
“Us.” Roman reached across the distance I’d put between us and tapped the engagement ring on my finger. “It falls on us. You don’t have to shoulder this burden alone. I’m handling everything at the ranch already. I don’t mind helping you handle this, too.”
I gripped Roman’s hand, then, giving it a squeeze and hoping it conveyed my genuine gratitude. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for Daddy and for Twisted Creek Ranch in my absence.”
Roman shrugged, shaking his head. “You don’t have to thank me. I would have done it even if you weren’t in the picture. It’s the right thing to do, paying your dad back for the kindness he has shown me ever since Granddad took me in when my mom... well... you know.”
“Yeah.” I gritted my teeth and nodded, swallowing hard. I almost forgot that Roman’s mother abandoned him when he was just two years old. She left him at the Twisted Creek bunkhouse for her father to find and just disappeared… all but fell off the face of the earth.
I sucked down a bracing breath and straightened up, wiping the tears off my cheeks. “Well... let’s go see about Daddy.”
Roman nodded and led the way into the medical center. I followed him step for step, all the way up to Daddy’s room.
“I’m not going to take any of that garbage, so you may as well draw up my discharge papers and let me go home.” My father’s voice boomed out into the hospital hallway and I sighed, shaking my head.
“Mr. Brandt, I really don’t think you’ve thought this through—” The nurse’s voice was strained, like she’d been pleading with my father to see reason for a while now, and it wasn’t working.
“I’ve thought it through plenty. Now, you seem like a nice young lady, so I’m not trying to be rude or make your job harder. I’m just telling you, I don’t need a damn oncologist. I’m not going to do the chemo or radiation, no matter what y’all saw on the x-rays of my lungs, so just go ahead and discharge me.”
My heart turned to stone and dropped to my feet.
Shit. My dad has lung cancer.
I reached over and gripped Roman’s arm, using it as an anchor to hold me together as I processed what I’d just heard. Swallowing hard around the lump that had formed in my throat, I pressed my lips together for a second before stepping into my father’s hospital room.
“But Mr. Brandt?—”
I cleared my throat, and the nurse jumped, whirling around to face Roman and me.
She looked Roman over from head to toe with blatant appreciation glittering in her limpid blue eyes, and didn’t bother to acknowledge me at all.
I crossed my arms and gritted my teeth for a second before speaking. “I think my father expressed his wishes quite clearly, and you’re in no position to dictate anything to him, regardless of your personal beliefs about his situation. You can go inquire about home healthcare options for my father while I have a word or two with him.”
“I really don’t think?—”
“No offense, but no one here is asking you what you think, ma’am. You heard Mr. Brandt, and you heard Ms. Brandt. Now, please, give them the privacy they asked for.” Roman shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned one shoulder against the wall, radiating an easy, no-nonsense attitude that I couldn’t help but admire.
Under different circumstances, I could imagine him being hell on wheels in a board room or running a business. It made quite the enticing mental image, but I shook that thought off. He was dangerously enticing as it was, and neither of us needed my imagination’s help.
The nurse turned red-faced and blew out a frustrated huff, shaking her head and muttering under her breath as she scurried out of Daddy’s hospital room.
“Thank you.” I reached out and gave Roman’s forearm a grateful squeeze, then strode over to my father’s hospital bed and sat down on the edge, taking his hand in both of mine, being careful not to jostle the IV that had been inserted there. “Hey, Daddy. How you doing?”
Dad’s green eyes turned misty, and he blinked back the tears that had suddenly pooled there. “God, you’re a sight for sore eyes, baby girl. I didn’t know you were planning on coming home any time soon.”
The rhythmic beeping of the EKG machine sounded between us and I cleared my throat, trying to shake off the tightness threatening to choke me half to death. I sucked in a deep breath through my nose and instantly regretted it as the mingled scents of industrial-grade cleaning supplies and sickness assaulted me.
“Roman called me when you collapsed, and I hopped the next available flight back to Montana. Seems like a good thing I made that call, too, based on what I just overheard on my way in here.”
“You gonna try to talk me out of it… tell me I should listen to the nurse?”
“I know better than to try to argue with you when you’ve already made up your mind. I’d have better luck arguing with a mountain, and besides… I’d rather respect your wishes, anyway. You’re old enough to know what you want.”
“That’s my girl.” Dad squeezed my hand, his fingers brushing over the engagement ring that rested on my finger. His eyes went wide as he studied the ring and a broad smile overtook his face, crinkling his eyes at the corners. “Well, I’ll be… I see Roman finally proposed. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know that you worked through that falling out you had before you left for Miami. Does this mean you’re coming home to stay?”
Daddy’s joy was so genuine and bright, it broke my heart. Tears burned my eyes, and I choked back a sob as I nodded. “Yeah, Daddy. I’m home for good.”
“I’m so glad to hear that, baby. I always figured you and Roman would end up together. When are you gonna get married? Soon, I hope. I’d like to be there… if I can.” He reached up and cupped my cheek in his big, callused hand.
The remnants of my heart that were left shattered into a million smaller pieces under the force of my father’s optimism and excitement. “Soon, Daddy, I promise.”
Daddy sagged with relief, sinking back against the pair of pillows piled up behind him on the hospital bed. “I’m so glad. Roman is a good man, baby girl, and I just know he’ll be the best husband any girl could ask for, and an even better father to my grandbabies.”
Tears pooled in my eyes, and I stared up at the acoustic tile ceiling, refusing to let them fall. “Sure would be nice if you could find a way to stick around to see those grandbabies, Dad.”