Chapter 8
TY FOUGHT TO control his emotions. If he got stressed out, Gizmo would pick up on it.
But seeing his horse like this, stiff and hurting, divided him.
One half wanted to rage against the injustices heaped upon each of them, him and Gizmo.
The other half wanted to fold into himself and crumple to the floor until someone came along and picked up the pieces.
He’d never been a man to give up when hardship reared its head.
But this was more than your average hardship.
This particular experience was better described as having been TKO’ed by Hardship and beaten up by his posse members, Pain, Misery and Hopelessness.
A small sound caught his attention, a noise a horse wouldn’t make.
He grabbed his walker and, legs trembling with exhaustion, faced the direction of the sound.
Narrowing his eyes, he stared into the sliver of dense shadow between the end of the tack room and the tall base of the haystack.
At first he saw nothing, but, as his eyes adjusted to the limited light, he realized someone was standing there.
“I know you’re hiding back there. Come on out.” His tone was intentionally gentle but left no room for either discussion or dissention.
The shadowy figure shifted, stopped and then stepped into the light.
He’d expected a guest, someone who’d been caught in the barn when Eli and Cade had kicked him out of the Mule. What he got was his worst nightmare and deepest desire all rolled into one.
Mackenzie Malone.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, the soothing cadence of his earlier words lost to immediate temper.
“I was out here checking on Gizmo when you showed up. I tried to leave, but I couldn’t get the door at the end of the alleyway to open.
The latch stuck. It left me either confronting you or trying to wait you out.
I chose the latter.” She shoved her hair off her face on a huff.
“How did you figure out I was here anyway?”
“You need to learn to keep quiet if you don’t want to be discovered skulking about.”
“I wasn’t skulking.”
“Fine. Let’s call it what it is—sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.” He snatched his walker up and did his best to make tracks for the barn door, hollering for Cade and Eli as he went. When his brothers failed to appear, Ty quietly cursed them. Freaking brothers. They know she’s out here.
Working to keep his breathing level, he forced one foot in front of the other in as fast a retreat as he could muster.
Even his best efforts couldn’t stop his temper from spilling out of his mouth.
“’Fess up. How are they getting you to do their dirty work, watching over me?
You obviously don’t need the money, and we clearly don’t have it to spare, so that’s not it. What did they promise you?”
“Can’t I simply do something because it’s right?”
He hated the way her voice seemed smaller, swallowed by the empty space above them. “You and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“We’ve never had anything that remotely resembles a relationship, Ty.
” Kenzie moved toward him, her hips swinging as they always did when she was walking off a good mad.
..or building up to one. “You always made it perfectly clear we were friends with benefits. Never anything more. I accepted that without comment and without fussing. So don’t you go throwing attitude at me, acting as if I’ve somehow wronged you by doing exactly what you asked me to do.
I used my own discretion in saving Gizmo’s life.
And my judgment calls kept him from being put down and guaranteed he’d recover.
I gave him a chance at life. The least you could do is offer up, oh, I don’t know, a thank-you.
But you won’t, will you? Or is it that you can’t, Ty?
Which one is true?” She closed in on him.
“Both, I’d wager. Why? Because it’s so clear that you’re pissed at the world, angry about the hand that’s been dealt you.
It’s inhibited your ability to do anything more than feel sorry for yourself. ”
She’d closed the distance between them and was leaning into his face as she threw out that last word. Fury raced through his veins, chased by guilt at the way he’d lashed out at her and the knowledge she was right. The hell he’d admit it, though.
She smirked, her eyes never leaving his as she goaded him further. “Surely the ever-argumentative Tyson Covington has something to say.”
Ty didn’t think, didn’t consider the consequences.
He just gripped the back of her neck and pulled her into him.
Their mouths came together without apology, without compromise, without softness.
This, this primal thing that always hung between them, proved bigger than words and defied any tenderness his wounded heart might crave.
He needed passion, needed to know he had survived, needed to feel something—anything—other than the ever-present pain.
He owned the kiss, sure of himself in this one thing.
She responded to his wordless directions, sighed into his mouth and gave herself over to the driving force of his desire.
Still, she didn’t let him dominate her but made him work for it, made him chase the particular tilt of her chin, the touch and retreat of her tongue, the nibble of her teeth on his lips.
Her chest brushed against his.
Ty didn’t think too much about keeping his balance.
He simply held on and let her come to him, encouraging her to take what she wanted and give him what he needed in exchange.
Somehow, though, his need seemed larger, more visceral, than simple desire.
Of course, given the way his body responded, his cock hardening in a painful rush and his heart thundering so loudly in his ears that he struggled to hear anything else, he wasn’t going to dismiss the power of desire.
Kenzie moved again in an effort to better accommodate the limited motion his neck brace allowed.
Despite the clothing between them, he could feel her nipples harden against his chest. Then she sighed his name.
It was her response that grounded Ty in the moment, gave him his footing and offered him the kind of reassurance he’d been searching for since he’d woken from the coma.
Here, with her, he found safety, a surety of self, a sense of purpose.
He could give her what she desired. And what she desired was him.
Yet the experience of holding her in his arms wasn’t all that simple.
True, he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her, to take the warmth she offered and let her spend the morning convincing him that he was, indeed, alive.
He also wanted to rail against her for things that weren’t her fault—the fact that she had two good legs, strong arms, a steady gait and, above all, the freedom to do as she pleased.
Conflicted, he pulled away, ending the kiss.
Her eyelids fluttered open and she blinked, her pupils wide enough they almost consumed the cornflower blue of her irises. “It’s hard to fight with you when you kiss me senseless.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up despite the fact that he tried his best to not smile. “That’s the point.”
“Yeah, well, it’s cheating.” She smiled, contentment radiating from her in waves.
The realization she was happy nearly knocked the wind out of him. How can she stand here and be happy?
Fighting to regain control of the moment, he glanced over her shoulder at Gizmo, who stood with his head up, ears forward and eyes bright.
Ty shook his head and then forced himself to meet Kenzie’s gaze.
“It’s not cheating. I’ve just never been one to depend on words when actions get the job done without complicating things. ”
And with her, it always worked that way. Words hadn’t ever been necessary between them. In fact, words tended only to muddle things. Without words, what existed between them was, and had always been, a simple case of mutual want that ruled the moment and drove their actions.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “No sense complicating anything.”
“You know I don’t do complicated, darlin’.”
She stiffened, her fingers digging into his arms. The smile that had pulled at the corners of her mouth disappeared, her expressive face closing down.
Ty wanted to retrieve the words, take them back.
He wanted to figure out how to say what had to be said—that he wasn’t available for more than the moment, never again, not even for her—without stealing that blissful look from her face.
But his old man had taught him early on that words, once offered up, could never be taken back.
KENZIE TRIED NOT to react. Honest.
She failed.
And she didn’t fail on a minor level. This failure proved epic. And the longer Ty’s words looped through her mind, the more her reaction gained first traction, then speed and finally purpose.
She’d heard him admit to Gizmo that there might have been something between them. Then to her face he’d crushed that hope.
She knew her eyes had shuttered, knew her face wore a neutral expression.
It was a tactic her father had mastered for negotiating, as well as in difficult social situations.
Her dad used the opportunity to craft a strategic response.
Kenzie had spent a lifetime emulating the very same affect but had never expected it to come in so handy.
She was surprised to realize that, for her, strategy wasn’t a factor.
She needed the time to figure out how she was going to hide the body, because killing Tyson Covington had taken on spectacular appeal.
Stepping away from the man lest she strangle him, she gave a curt nod. “Sure thing, darlin’. Why complicate somethin’ so simple as a friends-with-bennies arrangement, right?” Her tone was so caustic it should have burned the barn down around them.
“Kenzie, I—”