Chapter Eighteen #2
“You figured five years was long enough for her to get settled in so that she wouldn’t want to leave, didn’t you?”
“She was settling in. She and Jayce were getting along great. Then you came along.”
“Do you really believe she and Jayce would be happy together?”
If so, then he didn’t know his own daughter at all. Or Jayce very well, either. They both needed partners who’d bring out their dark sides.
Belle’s dark side was amazing. Bold and exciting and fun. Jayce’s dark side probably involved swiping a second cookie off the dessert platter. That guy was dull.
Adam eyed Beau with dislike. “She’d be happier here, settled down with him, and giving Mavis a few great-grandbabies to enjoy, than traipsing all over the country with you. Belle needs a home.”
That, Beau couldn’t dispute. Her early years had been far from secure, and foster care hadn’t turned out much better. “She could have used a home when she was fourteen.”
“Mavis wouldn’t allow it. She wanted Belle to see the outside world first. But you see how happy Grady and Pearl are. The outside world can’t compare to what Burning Scrub has to offer. This is her home now.”
Adam was trying to convince himself that Belle belonged here, because he didn’t give a damn about what Beau thought. And Beau thought that Burning Scrub did have its charm. But a vacation type of charm. Not the live-here-when-the snow’s-two-feet-deep type.
“The outside world has more to offer someone like Shanda,” Beau said. “Are you the reason she keeps coming back?”
Adam scoffed over that. “She’s here strictly for money. I’m a nice little side bonus.”
Beau couldn’t contain the shiver brought on by the image his brain dredged up of Adam’s naked butt cheeks.
Shanda enjoyed the role of dominatrix, and Adam made the perfect challenge for her, because Beau couldn’t imagine a more dominant male.
Except Beau hadn’t noticed him putting up much of a protest.
He didn’t point it out to him, though, because he wanted to live.
“Tell Belle you’re her father,” he said.
Adam finished pulling the first boot on and picked up the second. “I will. When I find the right time. She’s had enough surprises lately.”
“Really? You think finding out that you’re her father is the worst shock in all of this?
I mean, we’ve both met her mother. Besides,” Beau said, “she’s not going to leave Mavis.
She likes her, and they’ve only just found each other.
She likes Benny, too.” Although he was maybe too old to get too attached to. And crazy, as well.
“You already asked Belle to go with you, and she turned you down,” Adam said smugly. “Good. I worried you’d break her heart, but I should have known she’s too smart for that.”
She was. Beau’s heart was the one about to be broken. But he’d lived through heartbreak before, and he’d live through it again.
The second line of the song hit him.
The day I left you, my world fell apart.
He sucked at songwriting.
“Belle has a right to know about you,” he said.
“I’ll tell her.” Adam stamped his foot into his boot. “When I’m damned good and ready.”
*
Belle
Grady delivered the kidnapping instructions to Belle before lunch. Dave said it was a go for that afternoon.
“Keep it to yourself, though,” Grady said. “Dave says they’ve got something planned as a distraction and he doesn’t want Sheriff Earp to catch wind.”
The natives had already been driven off once by the sheriff when they raided the town to steal horses, so she hoped whatever they planned now, their lives weren’t at risk. Sheriff Earp was very hands-on.
Belle took her herb basket and headed off after lunch.
The rendezvous point was a large, open meadow with berry bushes that ringed the edge of the trees, and Adam’s cayenne pepper was doing its job, but she had a can of bear spray in her basket as backup.
She’d copied a recipe for bug repellent Dave’s wife had given her, and it worked so-so, which was better than nothing.
The sun added enough heat that the flies weren’t so bad out in the open.
It was too early for huckleberries, but she had her basket half-full of raspberries when something moved in the bushes. Her first fear was of bears, because she’d never hear Dave and his friends unless they wanted her to.
She eased her hand into the basket, wary of making sudden movements, and latched on to the can of bear spray, but the bear turned out to be Adam.
“Hi,” Belle said, surprised by his appearance, because it wasn’t part of the script. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping the sheriff do sheriffy stuff?”
“He’s doing okay on his own.” Adam thumbed the brim of his Stetson, nudging it toward the back of his head. “We need to talk,” he said, his words as stiff as his gait. “This seemed like a good place for us to talk in private.”
A bad feeling crawled over Belle’s skin. She hoped this wasn’t going to be another talk like the one they’d had in Grady’s kitchen. She didn’t want to discuss Beau with him. Jayce, either. Or any man she might potentially sleep with—past, present, or future.
“It won’t be private for long. Dave’s supposed to kidnap me any minute now,” she warned him.
“So that’s why he and his friends are at the mercantile, dressed in blankets and trying to sell woven fabric and beads and buy cigarettes.
Don’t worry, this won’t take long.” He picked a handful of ripe berries as he was talking, then tipped the fruit from his palm and into her basket.
“How are you adjusting to Mavis and Benny turning out to be your grandmother and great-grandfather?”
Better than finding out that her mother was Shanda. He hadn’t asked her about Shanda, though. No one did. Which said it all.
But she was determined to be grateful for the good she’d been given.
“A few weeks ago, I had no family other than a father who doesn’t want me,” she said. “Now I have Mavis and Benny. It’s hard to hang on to resentment when they thought they were doing the right thing for me.”
She wasn’t over it. Not by a long shot. But focusing her anger on Shanda—who wasn’t good by any stretch of anyone’s imagination—helped. As did working through her feelings with Beau. He was definitely part of the good.
So why did that make her sad?
Adam deposited another handful of berries into her basket. “How would you feel about gaining one more family member?”
Belle didn’t like where this conversation had turned. “That depends.”
“What if it’s me?”
“You’re my uncle? Is Mavis your mother, too? Why wouldn’t she say so?” What a relief. She liked Adam, even if she didn’t care for the way he treated Beau.
Then she did the math in her head, and the math didn’t add up. If Mavis was Adam’s mother, she would have been fourteen or fifteen. A portent of doom twitched neurons to life along the full length of her nervous system.
“I’m not your uncle.” A vein popped into prominence on Adam’s forehead. “I’m your father.”
“You’re not my father. I have a father.” Not a great one, but he loved her.
He’d taught her to love learning. And how the Vancouver model of money laundering worked. Which made him no worse than the rest of her family.
But Adam continued to talk. The words rushed out. “Your mother met Nigel Forsythe shortly after she found out she was pregnant. She’d already left Burning Scrub by that time.”
Belle’s neurons finally transmitted the message. All the blood rushed to her head. “I need to sit down.”
Dave and his friends chose the worst moment possible to burst out of hiding. They wore blanket robes draped over sheepskin tunics and leggings. Dave sported a buffalo horn headpiece instead of a hat because why not keep the stereotypes rolling.
“Sorry,” he said to Adam. “You were supposed to be in town with Sheriff Earp—who, by the way, tried to arrest Bob for shoplifting, but gave up because Bob doesn’t speakum good English.
It was awesome.” He gestured to Bob, who grinned proudly.
“Don’t worry, we didn’t understand a thing you two white people were saying, either.
We’re here for Belle. That’s it. Bob, grab her basket. ”
Bob helped himself to a handful of berries while he was at it.
Belle’s head was still spinning and there was a good chance she’d throw up. Had Beau known about Adam? Was that why he’d offered to take her with him when he left? Why he’d told her to remember that no family was perfect?
She was so done. “Forget it. I’m not in the mood to be kidnapped.”
“Too late,” Dave said. “We stopped at the Ride No More Ranch on our way here and let Jayce know we were coming. He’s probably already in town.” Dave addressed his friends. “The hanging is going to be one of the highlights. I hear Beau puts on quite a show.”
“We’ll finish our talk after the card game,” Adam said to Belle.
But Belle was done talking. She was ready for action.