“I’m here to see Allan.”
She smiled up at him and smacked her gum. “Your name?”
“Tell him Colt Waggoner needs to have a talk.”
She scribbled down a note and gave him a coy smile. “Be right back.” She slid from her desk and crossed the room, disappearing out a door behind her desk that was marked private.
Not before he caught a flash of red sole, though, and his attention was drawn to her shoes. Pink. High-heeled with a red sole. Beth Ann had been wearing the exact same shoes when he’d rescued her from the mud. She’d laughed when he’d snapped the heel off.
“I always got a pair of these when Allan cheated on me,” she’d told him. And it seemed that Allan had given the exact same pair to his mistress. Fucking asshole. Colt clenched his hands, feeling the need to smash his fist through the man’s face.
The secretary returned a moment later, all smiles. “Mr. Sunquist will see you now.”
Good. He nodded at the woman, and then pushed through the door.
When he entered the room, Allan was standing, frowning at Colt. He was dressed in an impeccable dark gray suit, a red collared shirt underneath, slightly open. And he was frowning intensely at Colt.
“What are you doing here, Waggoner?”
Colt stood in front of the desk, crossed his arms. “You and I need to have a talk. I want you to leave Beth Ann alone.”
Allan snorted and sat back down at his desk. It had stacks of paperwork neatly piled in one corner of the desk, and the other had trophies crammed together. Behind him, on a shelf, he saw even more trophies—car sales mixed with football trophies from high school and college—and a picture of Beth Ann and Allan smiling, their cheeks pressed together. They both wore formalwear, Allan in a tuxedo, and Beth Ann in a sedate black dress, her hair pulled back in a tight updo. She looked young in that picture, but even in the photo, Allan’s face seemed to take up most of the picture, as if she were just a charming accessory and he the star.
“I’m not leaving her alone. Not when I think she’s making a mistake.” Allan sneered at him. “You do realize this is all a phase, right? She’s mad at me. She’s going to pout and insist on her independence for a few months, and then she’s going to miss me. And when I apologize again, she’s going to take me back, and we’re going to get married.” He gave Colt a dismissive look. “You’re just a speed bump in the road.”
“Really.”
“Yes, really.”
“You’re full of shit,” Colt said, suddenly furious. “You treated her like garbage. You cheated on her. She’s done with you.” He glanced back at the door. “I saw your secretary’s shoes. Beth Ann had a pair just like that. You give everyone you fuck expensive shoes so they don’t ask questions?”
Allan’s face flushed red with anger. “You need to mind your own goddamn business—”
“I am,” Colt said flatly. “Beth Ann is my business. And you don’t need to text her and try to get her back because you miss her. You had her. You lost her.”
Allan’s face grew sly and he tilted his head back, staring up at Colt’s looming form on the far side of the desk. “I see what this is. You’re mad because I found out the truth.”
“What truth?”
Allan waved a hand. “About your little weekend rendezvous. About how you lied to her so she’d have to spend all weekend with you in the woods. She was probably desperate and lonely and you probably nailed her as soon you could get her alone. What was it—she needed to cuddle up against you for warmth? And you just had to slip your hand in her panties and diddle her?”
Colt’s hands twitched, images of pounding the man’s face in flashing behind his eyes. “You don’t know shit.”
“I know plenty, you piece of trash,” Allan bit out. “I talked with Rob over at the fire department. He said you called him and said there was no one else out there that weekend and you were heading in. But to hear Beth Ann tell the story, you two were stranded and had to stay out there all weekend. Sounds like a hookup to me.”
Colt’s jaw clenched. “That’s not what it was.”
“No? Then what was it?”
Colt said nothing. The weekend had started out to teach her a lesson. To make a spoiled, prissy woman get knocked down a few pegs. To get subtle revenge on a town that hated him and thought he was garbage because of his last name.
But that sounded just as bad. Worse, maybe. So he said nothing.
Allan’s smirk was knowing. “I thought so. Let me tell you something, buddy. Beth Ann is always crying about trust and how much she values it. And as soon as she finds out your ass lied to her, you’re out the door and I’m back in it.”
Rage burned through his mind. He wanted to grab the man’s face and slam it into the front of his desk. Deck him with one of those stupid trophies. “You’re not going to say a thing,” he bit out.
“No? And why wouldn’t I?”
Colt clenched his hands. Forced himself to breathe. This shithead was baiting him.
Allan just smiled, the look smug. As if he’d won. “Why wouldn’t I?” he repeated.
“Because I know your secrets, Allan Sunquist,” Colt said with a drawl, pretending a casualness that he didn’t feel. “Big man of Bluebonnet. Everyone’s favorite town councilman. A veritable saint. No one can figure out why Beth Ann left you. They just can’t understand it. I guess they don’t know that you cheated on her, do they?”
Behind the desk, Allan stiffened.
“But I know the truth,” Colt continued. “She won’t tell anyone that you cheated on her, will she? She doesn’t want to hurt you like that. She’s not mean like that.” He leaned over Allan’s desk. “But…I am. And I’m not afraid to tell everyone how you cheated on her—repeatedly.”
Allan gave him a cold stare.
“It sure would make everyone in town look at you differently wouldn’t it? To know that you had a beautiful, smart, funny girl like Beth Ann and you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants? That you had to fuck anything moving just because you needed to feel like the big hero?” He glanced around the office, then back at Allan. “I’m sure reputation’s very important in a job like yours. How many cars you sell to the good folks of Bluebonnet?”
Allan’s face had turned a dull red again. He said nothing for a long, long moment. Then, slowly, he gave Colt a narrow-eyed gaze. “So is this all a master plan?”
“Plan?”
“Take my fiancée. Destroy my job. My reputation. This some big revenge plan because of who I am and who you are?”
Colt barked a laugh. “Fuck you. It has nothing to do with me.”
Allan tilted his head. “Liar. That’s what it is, isn’t it? You want everything that I have—everything you didn’t—and you want to destroy it because you’re jealous. Because you’ve never had what I had.”
Now the man was just talking nonsense. “All I want is for you to leave Beth Ann alone.”
“That’s what this is,” Allan repeated again, his eyes angry slits in his handsome face. “Well, I’m not going to sit here and let you walk all over me, Waggoner.” He emphasized Colt’s last name with a sneer. “You cross me and I’m going to make your family so fucking miserable they won’t be able to see straight. Your father has some outstanding warrants, you know. Needs to clean up his property or they’re going to haul his ass to jail. He can’t run a junkyard on private property. The neighbors are complaining. I’d hate for such an old man to be carted off to jail, but what can you do?”
Colt stared at Allan’s evil smile, hate seething through him.
Allan stared back, not moving.
“You leave Beth Ann alone,” Colt said slowly. “Or the next time I pound your face in, I’m going to do more than give you a few black eyes.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.” And he stalked out of the dealership.
FOURTEEN
Colt slammed into his Jeep and punched the steering wheel. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Any leverage he might have
had over that smarmy asshole was gone. His father had fucking warrants out for his arrest? The Waggoner property had always been a disaster. Had someone finally complained? The old man was going to get tossed into jail. And Colt was going to have to be the one to bail him out. Berry didn’t have the money. Marlin worked as a truck driver. He wouldn’t have the money, either. Goddamn it.
He tore onto the highway, driving back toward Bluebonnet. Marlin didn’t answer his phone. Browning was working out at an oil rig in Louisiana for the next six months. Chester was probably still in prison out in Huntsville. Two more years. Berry, then. He called his brother’s job.
“Big Burgers,” Berry said with a familiar drawl. “Can I take your order?”
Fuck his goddamn family. “What’s the deal with Dad and warrants out for his arrest?”
“So you found out about that?”
Colt gritted his teeth in frustration. “Just tell me.”
“Needs to clean up the property. I told him I’d help, but I’ve been working double shifts here at work, you know. He’s waiting for Chester to get out.”
“Chester doesn’t get out for another two years,” Colt growled.
“That’s about right,” Berry agreed.
“I’ll take care of it,” Colt gritted, and hung up the phone. He tossed it into the passenger seat, wishing he could smash it down on the road.
Damn his family. They’d been a thorn in his side his entire life. He’d known that if he came back to Bluebonnet, they’d crawl back into his life again. Lazy, poor, trashy Waggoners. His mother hadn’t been able to stand it—she’d left when he was twelve, unable to handle looking after four Waggoner boys and his father on a supermarket salary. She was tired of working so hard, she’d told his dad. Tired, and she was going to go find herself a nice sugar daddy that would take care of her. That was the last time Colt had seen her. He hadn’t wanted to be part of that family after she’d left. He’d been unable to escape being one of the Waggoner boys. The clothes that were handed down from his dad. The food stamps. The name calling from the other kids in town. The day after he graduated from high school, he’d left to join the marines. He’d never looked back.
And now, he was back and he was going to have to clean up their messes again.
Before they ruined his new life, and his relationship with Beth Ann.
He’d just have to tell her the truth, as soon as he got his father squared away.
Even when Colt was growing up, Henry Waggoner’s home had been a shithole. Colt hadn’t seen it in almost nine years, and wondered if his memories had made it worse than he’d thought.
Nope. It was just as bad as he recalled. The road was little more than potholes—the city wouldn’t maintain this far out. It was up to the residents to have gravel poured every couple of years, but anyone that lived out here couldn’t afford something like that. His Jeep bounced down the rutted dirt road. His father’s old mailbox popped into view down the road, and Colt pulled up next to it and stared out at the yard, his lip curling in disgust.
When Colt and his brothers had been boys, they’d played among the broken-down cars on cinderblocks. They’d collected aluminum cans to bring in a few extra nickels. They’d chased one another through the high weeds and made forts out of scrap metal and old, discarded tires.
Now, when Colt looked across the yard, all he saw was trash. His father owned three acres and had set his trailer back at the edge of the property, away from the junk. But the junk butted up to the trailer now. Colt parked and picked his way toward the trailer. Busted cars, bikes missing wheels, piles of piping lay scattered amid thigh-high weeds. There was a stack of tires that was easily thirty deep. An old tractor that looked as if it should have been torn apart for scraps balanced precariously on two wheels, the other side half buried in dirt and grass. Every inch of his father’s yard was covered in garbage.
A dog barked in the distance. That must be Roscoe. He’d been little more than a puppy when Colt had left, and he’d been furious—once again—that his dad had spent several hundred dollars on a hunting dog rather than fixing the leaking roof on the single wide. “He can help us catch dinner,” his father had proclaimed proudly.
Colt hadn’t understood it then. Hell, he didn’t understand it now. No one in his family seemed to take responsibility for their poor living situation. The money for the dog could have bought T-shirts for his little brothers. But they weren’t mad, either. They’d been thrilled that they had a dog. And that was just one memory out of dozens.
His father had made a living when he was younger selling scrap metal and fixing junkers, or if they couldn’t be fixed, tearing out the useful parts and selling them. People had always dropped their broken shit at Henry’s trailer, and eventually it’d be cobbled and used up and taken away. But it looked as if Henry had let things pile up. Colt was revolted. He pushed to the front steps and noticed several bags of trash sitting next to the stoop. Fucking disgusting.
He banged on the door.
No answer.
Colt knocked again, harder. He could hear the radio on. He glanced back at the road—his dad’s junker truck was there, so he had to be home. He banged on the door one more time, and the dog began to bark loudly.
Colt sighed and pushed at the door knob. It wasn’t locked. He took a step in, then squatted as Roscoe came up to him, dancing with excitement. The dog’s muzzle was gray with age, and he looked a little worn out. Had it really been so long? Roscoe barked a warning, then licked Colt’s outstretched hand.
He smiled, petting the dog on the head. He’d hated the animal when he’d left, resenting the meals and clothing Roscoe had represented. Stupid to hate a dog.
“You need to answer your door, Dad,” Colt warned, then stood. The interior of the small single wide was a mess, too. Ramen noodle cups littered the counter, along with empty beer cans. The fridge was yellow with age, and the lone chair that sat in the living room was covered in masking tape on one corner, the upholstery destroyed.
Colt felt a twinge of guilt. Had his father been living in this heap with no help because Marlin was out driving his truck?
“Dad?”
No response. He thought he heard a thump in the back bedroom, but hell, that could have been trash falling over. Still, he took a step forward and frowned when the entire kitchen seemed to creak under his foot. Damn. The trailer was falling apart. He took another step forward, toward the door shut at the end of the single wide, where the lone bedroom was. He and his brothers had piled into that one room while his dad had slept on the couch. Colt glanced back at the living room. Back when he’d had a couch, anyway. “Dad?”
“Colt?” The sound was wheezing, faint, and made Colt’s heart clench in fear. He pushed forward, wincing when he stepped on a rotten patch and his foot nearly sank through the floor of the trailer. He pushed open the thin door and stared at the mess. The small room had a bed pushed to the corner. His dad was on the floor, covered in blood and bruises. His long, white hair lay stringy across his face, and several days’ growth of beard covered his worn face.
“Colt?” His dad struggled to get up. “I—I’m stuck.”
Underneath him, the floor of the trailer had collapsed in one section, rotted away. His dad had fallen through, his leg trapped somewhere under the trailer. His father winced, in obvious pain, and there was blood on the floor next to him.
Colt moved in carefully, his heart pounding. He knelt beside his dad, gripped his hand. “It’s okay, Dad,” he said softly, guilt and fear crashing over him. “We’re going to get you out of here and take care of you, okay?”
And he pulled out his cell phone and called 911.
The next few hours were a nightmare for Colt. The emergency vehicle couldn’t get close enough to the trailer, so Colt and a few of the paramedics had to haul his father out of the trailer and carry him across the junk-strewn field. From there, he’d followed the ambulance to the closest hospital, thirty miles away. His dad had been taken to emergency, leaving Colt i
n the waiting room, sick at heart. Berry was working a double shift and would be by when he was done, and Marlin was currently en route to Vegas, and wouldn’t be back for days. Browning was on the rig and couldn’t be contacted.
That left Colt.
Colt, who was racked with guilt. He’d deliberately ignored his father’s requests to see him. He’d been furious at the old man, holding grudges for his upbringing. It had taken a pissing match with Allan to get him to go see his father. What if it had been a few more days?
His father could have starved to death, a prisoner in his own damn trash heap of a trailer.
Colt didn’t like to think about that. He didn’t know what to do, either. He’d called Beth Ann and she’d promised to be on her way as soon as she finished with her customer.
They’d wheeled his dad into a room a bit later. He’d simply been dehydrated from being stuck in the floor. His leg was bruised and the enormous scrapes covering his leg infected, but they’d given him antibiotics and set him up on IV fluids. He could go home in the morning, the nurse had assured him, and then they’d discussed payment. His father had no insurance, naturally. Colt gave them his address to send the bill.
The nurse had pulled him aside and talked to him for a bit longer, concerned about his father. He showed poor nutrition for a man his age, and was suffering from several vitamin deficiencies. She asked what he’d been eating—Colt couldn’t tell her. She also cited concerns about his living conditions, and again, Colt had no answers.
All he knew was that he couldn’t let his dad go back to the trailer. It was not fit to live in, and if he went back, Colt’d just be fishing him out of it within weeks. He couldn’t let the thing fall down around the old man’s ears. They discussed options—the nursing consultant suggested a home, but Colt shook his head. His dad was stubborn. He’d never stay in a home.
It had been one of the longest hours of his life—the nurse grilling him about his father’s care, and Colt having no answers. He felt…ashamed.