Carter

  ***

  Grace turned around with the cupcakes. Her heart dropped went she saw only empty space where Carter had been.

  She heard Tyler’s exclamation, the front door banging, the roar of Carter’s truck. She peeked out the kitchen window in time to see Carter drive away like the hounds of hell were after him.

  Great. She’d jumped him like a horny schoolgirl and chased him away.

  Grace stood still, the hot pan between her mitts, while the sensation of Carter’s body against hers came back to warm her day. She vividly felt the imprint of his hand on her backside, his mouth, experienced and able, opening hers in the best kiss of her life.

  Damn that the cupcakes had chosen that moment to be done. Grace would have gone on kissing him, let the things burn, if Carter hadn’t come to his senses and shoved her away.

  They’d banged mouths, Grace jerking from him before she could burst out laughing.

  She felt the tingle of the kiss, the warmth of Carter’s body, the unmistakable feel of his hardness against her abdomen. Grace was torn between wanting to spin around and around in a joyous dance, and feeling like a complete idiot.

  “What the hell is with him?” Tyler asked as he strode inside. “I mean, more than what’s going on with him now.”

  Grace quickly slammed the pan down to the counter. “Don’t know,” she mumbled.

  She felt Tyler’s interested stare, then he said, “Hey, cupcakes. Let me have one. Pretty please?”

  Grace shoved the other pan at him, the one Carter had already pried a cupcake out of. Tyler’s blue eyes lit as he scooped out a cake and ate it in two bites, much as Carter had.

  “Mmm,” Tyler said. “Damn good.” He let his eyes drift closed as he licked his fingers, then he gave her a slow smile. “You’ve got talent. I could eat your food all day.”

  Why was it that Tyler, a blue-eyed, handsome man with a godlike physique and a charm that could warm a woman to her toes, registered nothing on Grace’s hot-meter? But Carter, with his hard mouth and hazel eyes, his unyielding stare that could stop a man in his tracks, and his long stretches of silence, could make Grace’s mouth dry and her need flare high.

  Tyler had open arms and a “come-and-get-it-ladies” attitude. Carter was forbidding, pushing away everyone except Faith. Tyler could give Grace a night in the sack she’d never forget. Carter would most likely not speak to her again after this impromptu and embarrassing kiss.

  So why couldn’t Grace chase Tyler and have a good time?

  Because she was in love with Carter Sullivan, and that was all there was to that.

  ***

  Carter had no real destination in mind as he pointed the truck down the highway, but pretty soon, he found himself in thick traffic outside Austin. He was trapped in a far lane, unable to make an exit and drive back to Riverbend, so he kept going. He had plenty of gas, and he’d just go where the road took him.

  The road took him down the Bastrop Highway, past the airport and on into rolling hills following the river. Then curving south, toward the bigger city of Houston, which reached out and swallowed up the countryside.

  Houston was effing big, and had only grown bigger since Carter had left it. The city had gotten rich on oil and never really died, more industries feeding it as oil boomed and busted and boomed again.

  Carter knew every inch of the city, with the exception of newer areas, but Carter’s life hadn’t taken him much to pristine housing developments and high-priced suburbs.

  He made it to his old neighborhood, in the heart of the heavy industrial area. Carter parked his truck, aware of predators eyeing it. They backed off when Carter got out, though, recognizing him. Those who didn’t recognize him would be told by others.

  He moved down the street toward his destination, past closed shops, strip malls with liquor stores doing plenty of trade, and people doing what they mostly did on warm afternoons in the city—hung out and tried to keep cool.

  Carter walked to an auto repair shop that did both legitimate and not-so-legitimate business. Two large guys on lookout came alert as he strode toward them, and one disappeared into the bowels of the shop.

  “Sullivan,” one of the men said. “You’ve cowboyed up. What’s with that shit?”

  Carter was still wearing his cowboy boots and button-down shirt, the one Grace had slid her fingers into. “Joss here?” he asked.

  The man shrugged. “Probably.”

  Which meant he was. Carter shouldered his way past him and through the clutter of the shop. One car was on a lift, the other with its hood open, but no work was being done at the moment.

  He knew the hidden back door that led to the chop shop. No cars were being taken apart right now, but they soon would be. Joss did other business too—Houston was a port city, and smuggling was a way of life for some people.

  Used to be Carter’s way when he was a kid. A young boy could easily slip through a crowd with a package, a message, a weapon. If caught, his sentence would be lighter than that of an adult, and he’d quickly return to Joss, ready for more work.

  Carter was rarely caught, but the last time, he’d been put into a juvenile center with an earnest do-gooder social worker running one of the programs. That program had sent Carter and some others out of the city to work on ranches. The idea was to get the kids free of the influences of the gangs, teach them honest, hard work, and have them form connections with people and places that would help them later in life. If nothing else, show them how honest folks lived.

  Carter and the others thought it a joke at first. Carter’s first assignment had been at a ranch down by San Antonio, where the rancher had been fond of young boys, and not in the way the social worker would like. His wife had known but had been too weak to do anything about it. Carter had beaten the man when he’d made advances, and ended up back in the detention center.

  The social worker hadn’t given up. She’d put Carter on the next busload of detention-center kids to Riverbend and sent him to work for Olivia Campbell.

  “Carter?” Joss solidified from shadows. “Been a long time, boy. What do you want?”

  Carter went to him, standing close but not touching him. “I want to know why the fuck you sent Lizzie to screw up my life. What the hell do you want?”

  Chapter Six

  Joss had aged. His face was lined, his dark hair streaked with gray.

  But his eyes were still hard, the brown as steady as when he’d told Carter, scared and half starved, that he could work for him.

  Not out of kindness, Carter quickly realized. Joss needed a kid who was smart and resourceful, who would learn that keeping quiet about Joss’s businesses was to Carter’s benefit.

  Joss and his friends had kept Carter and whatever other kids came through there scared and uncertain. They’d have good days of talking, drinking, laughing, then the next Carter would be beaten up for no discernible reason. Joss liked to slide his knife over the inside of Carter’s arm to see how many cuts Carter could take. You always knew one of Joss’s kids from the scars. Lizzie had them too.

  Once, Carter had been terrified of the man. Joss was strong, unforgiving, and hadn’t stopped others from hurting Carter. But without Joss, Carter wouldn’t have had anything to eat or a place to sleep, or medicine when he was sick. Joss had taken care of him, in a weird kind of way.

  Now Joss stared back at him, the mean light in his eyes. “Lizzie? Where is she? I haven’t seen her since she ran out on me.”

  Carter didn’t take his word for it. Joss was a liar and did nothing that didn’t meet his own ends. He doubted Lizzie would have thought to come after Faith on her own, or tried for custody. She’d rarely done anything without it being Joss’s idea. Carter knew he’d never have had the affair with her at all if Joss hadn’t approved it.

  “What do you want?” Carter asked. “Money?”

  The men from the shop now stood at the door, watching, though they didn’t approach.

  Joss wiped the wrench he was holding with an oily rag
. “Why would I want anything from you, sunshine?”

  “I don’t know,” Carter said. “I have money. You always want more. You and Lizzie were close.”

  “Yeah, we were,” Joss said. “Real close.”

  “As in, you slept with her,” Carter answered. “I always knew that.”

  “I did. It was a long time ago, though. Like about ten years.” Joss’s lips twitched, and the meanness in his eyes increased.

  Carter folded his arms. “If you’re gonna say you are my daughter’s father, save it. I did a DNA test when she was a baby. I wanted to make sure. She’s mine, no question.”

  Joss shrugged, as though he’d taken a chance, and lost. “What would you have done if it turned out she wasn’t yours?”

  “Kept her anyway,” Carter said. “I sure as hell wouldn’t have given her to someone like you to raise.”

  “Aw, after all I did for you.” Joss grinned now, but the smile had no kindness in it. “Why’d you come back here, boy, if I’m such bad shit?”

  What Carter really wanted to do was punch the man, and keep on beating him. Give back every blow Joss and his friends had bestowed on Carter.

  He knew if he did that, the guys inside the door would jump him, and they had crowbars. Joss had always been strong—he’d get in a few whacks with his wrench. Carter carried a knife with him, but if they broke his bones before he could pull it, it wouldn’t do him much good.

  “I want you to talk to Lizzie,” Carter said. “She listens to you. Tell her to back off. And if you’re the one who put her up to fucking with me, stop.”

  Joss’s brows went up. “Stop? Or what? I can still make your life hard, Carter. You want to keep your candy-ass family from paying for your big mouth? Or your pretty daughter from being worked on? I know people who would pay good money for a girl like that.”

  Carter closed the space between them and had Joss’s shirt in his hands, the wrench clattering to the floor before the other guys could move.

  “You touch my daughter, and I will kill you. I’ll rip your head off your body and dump you in the trash.” Carter shook him, looking straight into Joss’s evil eyes. “I won’t let anyone stop me.”

  Joss’s gaze flickered. The man was good at lying, but he also recognized the truth.

  Joss’s own fault. He had made Carter what he was—angry, protective of those Joss threatened, unafraid of consequences.

  The consequences met Carter now. Joss’s thugs had advanced, and one swung his crowbar at Carter’s head.

  Carter spun and deflected the blow with a practiced move. He grabbed the bar itself and dragged the man off balance, ducking as the second tried to smack Carter in the gut.

  Carter backed away from both of them, wrenching the first one’s crowbar from him. Now he had a weapon.

  The other two didn’t back off. They were fighters, toughened by life and working for Joss. If Joss wanted Carter dead, they’d keep trying until Carter was deceased.

  Carter met blows with blows, striking out with the crowbar. He was rewarded with the second man grunting and doubling over, but the first man pulled a blade.

  Good thing Carter knew how to fight. He’d learned to pull his punches scrapping with the Campbell boys and then stunt fighting, but he didn’t have to pull any now. He’d mastered tricky moves and honed his reflexes. Just because his stunt brawls were choreographed didn’t mean they took any less energy or skill.

  Carter brought his elbow up under the first man’s chin, sending him backward, blood streaming from his mouth. The second man still wheezed from the stomach blow, but he came up again, hard knuckles coming toward Carter’s face.

  Too fast. Carter moved with the blow, but he took it across the cheekbone. He felt his skin open, blood drip.

  Joss had left the sidelines. He came after Carter with the wrench he’d retrieved at the same time the first man got back in, swinging his knife with adeptness.

  Carter shoved the knife away with his arm, getting sliced, but shallowly, and punched the man full in the face. Carter spun on his heel, sending a roundhouse kick into Joss.

  He didn’t have much room to move, so the kick didn’t have as much force as it could have, but Carter’s boot connected with Joss’s middle, and the man bent over.

  The second man had recovered, and the first man and Joss would soon. Carter slammed himself into the second man, got his arm around his neck as the guy struggled for balance, and threw him into the first man.

  Then he got out of there. Carter was dripping blood, leaving a trail, and he ached where he’d been hit, but he could run, fast. Chasing horses to vault onto them had taught him that.

  No one else was in the shop, or at the front door. Carter made it through and down the street to his truck. A couple of kids were looking it over, but when they saw Carter barreling at them, they vanished down an alley.

  Carter had been them once. He’d believed any item of personal property was simply waiting to be stolen. It was just stuff, he’d reasoned, worth only what someone else was willing to pay for it. If the original owners couldn’t hold on to it, that was their problem. He’d learned from the Campbells to treasure what he worked for, and to respect that others had worked hard for what they had.

  No one came after him from Joss’s. Joss didn’t hurt people in the open, only in private. He liked to make sure there were no witnesses and no evidence whenever the police tried to arrest him. Joss had connections inside law enforcement as well.

  Carter started up his truck and roared his way down the street. Blood dripped from his face and his shaking arm to the upholstery. Olivia was going to kill him when she realized what he’d done, and Faith wouldn’t be too forgiving either.

  But Carter would face down every demon from his past and tear apart every person he knew in order to keep his daughter safe. Nothing was more important than that.

  ***

  Carter managed to get back into the house without anyone seeing him—Faith was still at school, having obtained his permission to stay late for the science fair committee. He’d signed a note to her teachers this morning. Grace hummed in the kitchen, and his brothers and mom were in the office or elsewhere.

  The suite of rooms Carter lived in with Faith had two bedrooms, each with a bathroom attached, and a little living room between them. Carter had helped build it onto one wing of the house.

  Carter stripped off and got into his shower, washing the dried blood from his skin. He kept soaping long after he was clean, as though he could eradicate the grime of his past.

  Finally rinsing and snapping off the water, Carter dried himself, then wrapped the towel around his hips and studied his injuries in the mirror.

  Not too bad. The cheekbone might need stitches. The slash across his arm hadn’t done much more than broken the skin. Carter had learned to keep moving when he fought, not allowing blows to land if he could help it.

  He stuck a bandage on his cheek, threw away the wrapper, and walked out into his bedroom.

  Grace spun around from his dresser. The top drawer was open.

  Carter froze. Grace’s green eyes widened as she took in Carter’s entire body, from forehead to feet. Her gaze lingered on the towel and then forced its way up again. She spied the cut on his arm, the bandage on his face, and her look turned worried.

  “You okay? Are you hurt?”

  If Carter had caught anyone else going through his dresser, he’d have snarled at them to get the hell out.

  This was Grace. He didn’t give a rat’s ass why she was in his room; he just liked that she was.

  He remembered kissing her sweet mouth this morning, which was now pursed as she waited for his answer.

  Grace hadn’t screamed and run away when she’d seen him walk out in nothing but a little towel. She’d looked. Blushed, but looked. Wasn’t ashamed of it either.

  Carter made himself speak. “You looking for something?”

  “What?” Grace’s eyes got big again. “Oh … I’m sorry, Carter. I … No, I can’
t tell you. It’s a surprise.”

  “Pretty woman in my room?” Carter asked. “That’s a nice surprise.”

  Grace flushed. “No, no. A surprise from Faith. I promised her absolute secrecy.”

  “Okay.” Carter’s flesh was damp, but his mouth was parched. He couldn’t think of one more word to say.

  “So,” Grace said. She flashed her smile. “I’ll just … um … let you get dressed.”

  She gave him one last swift glance, then turned away. She was going to walk out. Back to the kitchen to cook for his ungrateful brothers—maybe she’d make a joke later about this. Maybe she’d pretend it never happened.

  Either way, Carter didn’t want her to leave.

  He moved rapidly after her, and pressed one hand to the doorframe above her. His bedroom door was open, but the one on the other side of his private living room, which led to the rest of the house wasn’t.

  “Grace,” he managed to say. “Don’t go.”

  Grace looked up at him, standing so close he could smell the spice of her.

  “Why?” Her voice shook. “I mean, why not?”

  “Because I need you.” The truth spilled out of Carter’s mouth before he could stop it. “I need something wholesome and good to hold on to.”

  Grace swallowed. “I sound like a food group.”

  Carter shook his head. “I need …” He broke off, nothing clear. “I feel like everything’s spinning out of control, trying to drag me back where I came from. I thought I’d shaken it off, thought I’d found a haven, but it’s coming for me. I need to hold on to something that grounds me here. That has nothing to do with that life. If I don’t let go of you, maybe I won’t fall back down the hole.”

  Grace stared at him, lips parted. Carter realized what he’d said to her—Save me. Be my anchor in the storm.

  Nothing about liking Grace for herself or doing nice things for her—all that stuff women wanted.

  No, he’d just said, Hold me and make the badness go away.

  She’d turn, walk back to the kitchen, carry on, shaking her head at his stupidity. Or maybe grow offended and tell Olivia she couldn’t work here with Carter hitting on her.