Chapter 13
13
“W hat’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?” Conrad asked Nikki. Based on her expression, she was deep in thought.
“Keep talking like that, and I’ll be forced to kiss you again,” she quipped with more than a hint of a twinkle in her eye.
“For the record, I kissed you,” he corrected. “And if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll be the one who is forced to do it again.”
Nikki laughed, and then her gaze unfocused like she was absorbed in thought again. A few seconds later, she said, “Do you notice how little anyone laughs anymore?”
The change in subject was welcomed, though it caught him off guard. He had to think about the shift for a second before responding. “I do.”
“Why is that?” she asked as he motioned for her to sit down at the table so he could doctor the cuts on her feet.
“Life, I guess,” he said. “It doesn’t get any easier as we become adults.”
“I used to think being older was the holy grail,” she said as she took a seat. He brought over the medical supplies and took a knee in front of her. “You know, you get to make your own decisions.”
“No one tells you what to do or when to do it,” he added.
“Exactly,” she said. “I couldn’t have been more wrong. Being an adult means more pressure.”
“You’re a law student,” he said. “Surely you didn’t think it would be a joyride.”
Nikki rolled her eyes. It made him smile.
“Obviously not,” she said. “All I’m saying is that it didn’t turn out to be like I believed it would.”
He studied her as he dabbed antibiotic ointment on her cuts. Holding her clean foot in his hand shouldn’t be erotic, either. Yet here he was thinking about what he’d like to do to her and with her. Shake it off. The Taylor Swift song lyrics popping into his head made him laugh.
“What?” Nikki asked.
“Nothing,” he said. No way was he admitting what was really going on inside his thoughts. “Go on. You were saying something about childhood being happier.”
“It should have been,” she corrected. “Mine certainly wasn’t.”
“Agreed,” he said. “You had to have had a crappy childhood for it not to be better than adulthood. All that innocence and wonder usually works out for people in normal families.”
“I know,” she said with a sigh that made him want to find a way to bring a smile to those gorgeous lips of hers.
Great job, dude. You’re really keeping the attraction thing at bay.
Once again, he had to stop himself. It was a little too easy to fall into the attraction trap with Nikki. Her good traits added up to someone special. No doubt about it. But he had nothing to give in exchange except disappointment and heartbreak. His adult life wasn’t exactly turning out as planned, either. He hadn’t intended to have a criminal record. Yet, he would do the same thing all over again if put in a similar position. He’d done the right thing, which was the reason he slept well at night. A clear conscience made for a soft pillow.
“I’ve seen the evidence of happy families,” she continued. “I have friends who are happy as larks in their families. They look forward to parent weekend at school.”
It was easy to see how an overbearing stepfather might not fit into the picture. Nikki had never once talked about loving Heath as a father. If memory served, she mostly talked about him as the one who stuck around.
People surprised the hell out of him, though. Was he being na?ve giving folks the benefit of the doubt before he got to know them? He was still working off handshakes when it came to dealmaking.
“Was there anything else you might have forgotten about the argument with my father?” she asked as he continued working on her cuts. She’d picked up a lot of damage on her feet. If the cuts had been left untreated, bacteria might have taken root. Knowing this had to be done didn’t stop him from grimacing every time she gave a soft gasp.
Conrad thought about her question for a long moment. “There was more that I didn’t think about before,” he admitted. “I had to tell the law my side of the story, but I was a little…shocked. Maybe thinking too fast to remember all the details; I just wanted it to be over.” Talking to Nikki came easy. Conrad wasn’t normally prone to a lot of words, so he was pretty damn sure his sister Chloe would call it a miracle. Nikki made him want to open up in a way no one else had before. “It wasn’t a big deal, though. Honestly, he was putting his mare up hot, and it pissed me off. She needed to be cooled down first, and he was being a jerk about it. So, I was giving him hell, telling him that was unacceptable.”
“Should it surprise me that my father used anything and everything at will without a thought about the consequences?” she muttered.
“He was your father,” Conrad said. “You didn’t know him all that well. Besides, based on what I’ve heard from Chloe, all little girls want to look up to their fathers.”
“How well did that work out for your sister?”
Conrad issued a sharp sigh. “Not so great. Chloe took off at seventeen.” He shook his head. “She’s the youngest. One of us should’ve stuck around to look after her, but we were too caught up in our own misery to pay attention.”
“You were in survival mode,” Nikki pointed out. “I’m sure she understood that.”
He nodded. “Chloe ran off with the lead singer in a band that became popular. She didn’t tell a soul before pulling that disappearing act.”
“Can you blame her?” she asked. “She probably rightfully assumed she’d be dragged back to the ranch.”
“True enough.”
“Which band, by the way?” she asked.
“Cactus Rose Outlaws,” he said with a bitter taste in his mouth after what the lead singer had done to his sister.
“I’ve heard of them,” Nikki said. “They blew up big time. They were hitting the charts.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, and the lead singer has been in and out of rehab.”
“His name is Blake, and he also happens to be the father of Chloe’s three-year-old son,” Conrad said.
“Blake has a kid?” Nikki said, shock in her tone.
“He sure does,” Conrad said. “Although, he turned his back on Chloe and never acknowledged his kid. We’re just now finding out that his manager, Craig, was doping Blake every time the man tried to get sober. It would lead back to drinking and drugging every time. Craig had power of attorney over Blake’s finances, so it was in the manager’s best interest to keep Blake drunk.”
“What an asshole,” Nikki bit out. “Craig is the one who came after your sister, right?”
“Yes,” Conrad confirmed.
“The bastard needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars,” Nikki said.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Craig had been arrested. It was up to the courts to do their job.
“What about Blake? What happens to him now that his manager is behind bars?” she asked, always concerned about others. Probably more than she wanted to admit.
“Last I heard, he’s back in rehab,” Conrad said.
“I hope it sticks,” she said. “He’s got a lot of talent and probably knew he couldn’t handle being a parent while under the spell of addiction.”
“You do realize that you’re sticking up for another underdog, don’t you?” he asked with a knowing smile.
“No, I’m not. You have no idea how ruthless I can be against anyone on the opposing bench during mock trials.”
“I have no doubt after seeing you in action,” he said. “I’m just pointing out the fact you’d be a good advocate for those who can’t stick up for themselves.”
Nikki sat back like this news hit her hard. “I never thought about using a law degree to be a victim’s advocate.” She flashed a surprised look. “No one has ever looked at me like this before.”
It was his turn to be caught off guard. “Like what?”
“Like I could do more for others than rip my opponent to shreds for money,” she said, folding her arms across her chest as she leaned back further.
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked, unable to tell if he’d just complimented her or issued a putdown.
“No,” she said, a slow—perhaps, proud—smile spreading across those pink, heart-shaped lips of hers. “I like it a lot, actually.”
The smile shouldn’t stir up those places in his chest that had been long-dormant as much as it did.
Nikki’s smile was like a drug—addictive and dangerous.
“But this isn’t the time to become distracted,” Nikki said, refocusing. The warmth spreading through her caused by someone looking at her in a different light was foreign. Did his version of her fit? Or was she as ruthless as everyone expected her to be? “We need to focus on clearing your name.”
Conrad nodded as he clamped his mouth shut like he was holding back.
“All done?” she asked as she pulled her foot out of his large, calloused hands—hands that had her imagination running wild as to what else they could do to her body, considering how much heat and sizzle skin-to-skin contact created. His lightest touch electrified her nervous system, causing a well of need to rise up like she’d never experienced. She couldn’t afford to need anyone in any sense of the word. After she helped Conrad clear his name, she would figure out her next move in life.
“Any bright ideas as to who might be behind setting me up?” he asked as he stood up and returned the supplies to the junk drawer.
“The guys who turned you in and basically abducted me were able to access the property with relative ease,” Nikki said, turning her attention back to solving the case. This was her comfort zone. “Is it usually that easy for outsiders to move around the ranch?”
“As far as security goes, Beaumont slept with a shotgun next to his bed,” Conrad said. “Most of our workers know how to use a gun, too. Plus, there are barbed wire and electric fences in the most vulnerable areas of the property. The bunkhouse is near the barn. Kade lives there with his new wife and baby. There are a couple of ranch hands who live there full-time. So, it’s not like there aren’t people around who might see something.”
“What about the trainer, Lukas Wayne? Didn’t you say he was doing shady deals behind the family’s back?”
“That’s right,” Conrad said. “But Harrison was on Lukas’s side.”
“What if one of those deals was going south?” she asked. “When will Lukas be back on the property?”
“Tomorrow, I assume,” Conrad said as daylight slipped into night. “I had intended to dig into Lukas’s background to find out about his hobbies, like maybe axe throwing, before the warning came that I was about to be arrested.”
“What about a wife and kids?” she asked, the wheels starting to turn. They were finally getting back on track. This was where the answers were waiting to be found, answers that would give Conrad his freedom back.
Once they’d accomplished that, she’d be free to go back to her life, too.
Why did that suddenly sound like a curse?
Nikki shook it off. She’d been through an ordeal. Emotions were bound to get the best of her. Besides, Conrad was a good person who didn’t deserve what was happening to him. Had he been right about her earlier? Did she have a soft spot for the underdog? It would explain why she’d always felt the need to stick up for her friends. That was half the reason no one had been surprised when she’d decided to go to law school. Even Heath had often remarked about her killer instincts but she never showed a different side to him. Those words had felt less like a compliment than he’d intended.
Once again, she thought about calling home. Should she at least call her mother to let the woman know she was fine? Would Heath have the call traced and send someone else to abduct her?
Nikki’s cell phone was at the sheriff’s office, along with Conrad’s. Both would have been picked up and stored as evidence, especially since no one knew if Conrad had been holding her hostage at the time they’d tossed their phones. However, someone on the property should have a cell she could borrow.
Again, would making contact alert Heath to her location? Would he come storming through the front gates, demanding she return home with him?
Would he assume she’d returned to pick up her vehicle? Or to stay with Conrad?
“Hey,” Conrad said, “are you okay?”
She blinked a couple of times to refocus. “Yes. Good. I was just thinking that I’d like to let my mom know that I’m all right, but I don’t want to risk another stunt being pulled by Heath.”
“You think he’s tracing your mother’s phone calls?” Conrad asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “Since my so-called disappearance, he might be taking extra measures.”
The look Conrad issued made her realize that made it sound like being in a different kind of prison.
In the past, she would have jumped to her stepfather’s defense. Not now. She was too tired and too frustrated with the man. In fact, all she wanted to do at this point was eat dinner, shower, and go to bed.
“Can we talk about something else?” she asked. “Like maybe what we’re going to eat for supper? Washing my feet felt like a miracle. I can only imagine what having my whole body clean would feel like. Besides, I can’t think any longer, and I’d like to take a hot bath before crawling into a warm bed.” The words with you died on her tongue. She shouldn’t ask that of him when they were both being so good about maintaining distance from their attraction—an attraction that would only lead to heartbreak and disappointment.
Damn. Where had that come from?
Could it be different with Conrad like her heart argued? Or did logic always win?