Chapter Nineteen – Swayze

The next couple of days were a blur. Swayze felt like the big pink elephant in the room every time Kaden walked into the ranch house or neared her for that matter.

Abigail and Mont tried their hardest to distract Swayze from the whirlwind Kaden brought with him. It felt like more of an ice storm to her because he was colder than anyone she’d ever seen in her life.

Swayze had been accustomed to numerous situations before and felt many different feelings, but she’d never felt unwanted.

Her family had been broken, but she never felt unloved or hated.

Kaden hated her; she felt it.

“What are you thinkin’ about?”

Swayze shook the thoughts from her head and turned toward Montgomery, who stood in the doorway of the office.

He wore a simple gray shirt that clung to the long, lean muscles of his arms and a pair of work jeans that had all kinds of crap on them. His boots were covered in hay, but Swayze had come to love the way the smell from outside clung to him.

Like a hot summer day.

“Nothing,” she lied, shutting down her computer. She stood to stretch her arms above her head, watching Montgomery as he let his eyes drop to the slither of skin above her jeans.

“Liar,” he said.

Swayze dropped her arms and lowered her gaze to his. Those green eyes were so intent all the time. “I think Ryker and I should go,” she finally said.

Mont kicked from the doorway, his boots leaving a trail of hay across the floor. “You’re messing up the floor—”

“Screw the floor,” he snapped, taking her chin in between two fingers. “We’ve talked about this, and you can’t go waltzing across the state alone with your psycho brother on the loose.”

“I can’t stay here,” she said, closing her eyes. “Kaden hates me, and I feel unwelcome.”

Montgomery exhaled while tangling his fingers into her hair. “My brother has some personal problems that have nothing to do with you.”

Swayze brought her arms up and slapped his wrist down from her and took a step back. “But he could be right, Montgomery. What doesn’t your big ass understand about that? I promised I wouldn’t bring anything on this family, and here it comes. The whirlwind.”

Mont cursed beneath his breath and took his hat off to toss it at the window. “Jesus, Swayze, I understand you think it’s your brother, but we don’t know for certain. It could be some jealous townspeople, some badass kids. Let’s get the cameras up first and then we can be for certain. The cameras came in this morning.”

“Then what? What if it is my brother lurking in the corners, trying to punish your family because I’m falling in love with you, and he can see it?”

Montgomery stood still for several moments, his hands propped up against his hips, but his face unreadable. Several pieces of hair fell onto his forehead, and he furrowed his dark brow. “You’re falling in love with me?”

“Mont, that isn’t the point of this conversation—”

“No,” he said, stepping forward, four fingers slipped against the back of her neck, and ran his thumb against her parted bottom lip. “It’s the point of everything if you love me because now, I have to protect you and not let your brother hurt my family.”

“Montgomery,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Nah, sweet girl, you’ve said it. It’s over with. I love you. You have to know that, right?”

She clamped her mouth shut and looked up at him. His face was full of the hard edges of his bone structure and full lips. That scruff on his face made him look older, but she loved it.

She loved him.

Damn it.

“Come with me to the fish fry tonight?”

“That’s your plan for this? A fish fry?”

Mont shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll see if Abigail will babysit, and we can go mingle. Call it a second date. Then when we get back, we can discuss the plan. Maybe we’ll catch something on the cameras.”

Swayze knew it was a distraction from what he didn’t want to face.

It sounded nice though.

“One more night of carefree feelings, and then we have to do something.”

Mont kissed her cheek. “I’ll go ask Abigail if she can watch Ryker. You can shut everything down in here.”

Swayze grabbed her things, turned off the lights, and walked toward where she heard voices in the kitchen.

“It’s okay. We can find somebody else,” Mont said.

Swayze rounded the corner. “Y’all have plans?”

Abigail looked excited. “Yes. We’re going to the fish fry. Maybe you can call your old babysitter to watch the kids? We were gonna bring Abigail with us, but this would be better.”

Swayze nodded. “Sure, I’ll call her up.”

She dug her phone from her purse and scrolled through until she found Lena’s number.

After the fourth ring, she answered, her voice low, but she cleared her throat and said, “Hello?”

Swayze felt weird asking her after their strange encounter in the laundromat, but Lena assured her she didn’t have any plans and sounded excited.

“She can do it,” Swayze said.

“Do what?” Kaden asked from the back door. He shoved off his boots and took off his cowboy hat. Swayze immediately wanted to slither her way out of the house.

“Lena is gonna watch the kids so we can go to the fish fry tonight.”

Kaden walked closer to the circle they had made and stood over Abigail. “Lena who? I don’t know a Lena.”

“She watched Ryker before I got this job.”

Kaden didn’t trust her. It was evident on his face. Abigail cleared her throat, pushing back her blond hair to look up at Kaden. “I think it’s a good idea. It’ll be fun to get out alone without Kathryn.”

He hadn’t moved his eyes away from Swayze, when Montgomery scoffed. “We’re leaving to go get ready, and we’ll drop the kids off there on our way back.”

Montgomery turned, leaving them standing alone. He grabbed Ryker and Kathryn, one on each hip, and stalked out of the door.

Swayze gave Abigail a small wave and walked after them. Mont had them both in the truck when Swayze slid into the passenger seat.

Mont pressed his elbow against the window and covered his mouth with his palm. “I understand why you want to leave,” he said, turning to her. “My brother is an asshole.”

“Who you telling?” she asked.

Mont started his truck. “You know, if you were my girl forever, you wouldn’t have to work. I made a lot bull-riding, and the ranch makes enough to make us comfortable.”

His girl forever.

“We just talked about my psycho brother being after me, and here you are, talking about being yours forever?”

“I meant you wouldn’t have to work with my brother. I would.”

Swayze looked out the window until they pulled into her driveway. It felt like a millennium since she’d been home.

Mont killed the engine, and they all piled out. A crow circled the woods beside her house and cawed, making Ryker and Abigail yelp.

“Looks like something is dead back there. It’s probably a deer, or maybe members of that raccoon family.”

It didn’t bother Swayze knowing animals lurked outside her windows because she’d had worse.

The flowerpot on her neighbor’s porch railing had fallen over. “Seems she hasn’t been outside today to catch that because she seems to catch everybody else’s business.”

Mont laughed. “She’s just lonely.”

Swayze unlocked her door and walked into the cool living room. “Okay, I’ll get ready and then pack them a bag.”

It took her an hour to get a bath, get presentable, and get the kids a bag to take. Montgomery had Ryker tucked underneath one arm and Kathryn on his lap, watching his phone when she said she was ready.

Mont rubbed their heads and helped them down. He stopped mid-step to look at Swayze, that same lopsided grin on his face. “Damn, girl.”

She rolled her eyes and felt heat creep up her neck. He’d said so many things to her, but something so simple flipped her heart. “Let’s get going. It starts soon, right?”

“In a few, but we can be late. They’ll save us a plate.”

Swayze helped Mont get the kids into the truck, and they headed toward Lena’s house. She stood at the doorway when they pulled up, a baseball hat on her head and a smile.

Mont’s phone rung.

“You can get that; I’ll drop them off inside.”

Mont opened the call and started talking to who seemed like the client about the horses Kaden brought home.

Ryker squealed when he saw Lena, which in return, made Kathryn excited.

“Thank you for watching them on short notice,” Swayze said.

“No problem,” she said, taking their hands.

Swayze gave their bags to Lena and waved them bye before running back to Mont’s truck. Lena stood by the door as they drove away, waving.

Montgomery ended his call and interlaced their fingers. “This is a big deal, now,” he said sarcastically. “All the older women in the town get together with Megan’s and cook a huge fish fry. They take the proceeds from the fair and put it toward the school.”

She could imagine how small it would be compared to a normal town gathering.

Vehicles were parked up and down Main Street, and in any open parking space. Montgomery let out a whistle as he parked way down the road toward the railroad tracks.

“Wow,” Swayze said, studying her clothes. The small blue-jean dress had only been a few bucks at an outlet store in Kentucky.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

Swayze sighed, fixing her makeup in the pull-down mirror and giving him a look.

“Don’t be nervous. We’ll just eat, dance, and chitchat. It’ll be fine. I’ll protect you from the old men that’ll want to dance with you.”

“Oh, so no young men will want to?”

He turned to look at her over a heavy-lidded glance. “They’ll want to, but they’ll know better. I’ll whoop an ass over my girl.”

She opened her door and looked at him over her shoulder. “Let’s get this over with.”

He hollered, jumped out, and raced around to gather her in his arms like a baby. “Put me down before we see people. My ass is almost showing.”

“Let’s be clear; nobody will be seeing that ass.”

He swung her down, close to his side, and kissed the top of her head.

***

Mont had been right. She’d been asked by three different men over sixty-five to dance, and she’d been dragged out into the center of the floor and turned around like a rag doll.

A group of photographers for the local paper had been there, taking pictures like it was some kind of super town event.

Once Swayze sat down again, Mont drew her chair closer, laughing in her ear. “I’ll tell the next one you’re waiting on me to dance.”

“Yeah, thanks,” she snapped, smiling at his wink. “The food is amazing though,” she said.

“Montgomery King,” someone said from behind them.

Mont turned to look over his shoulder and shouted, “Pepper,” really loudly.

Swayze watched as the two men embraced each other. The man hugging Mont looked over his shoulder at her and smiled. He was the complete opposite of Mont. He wore a suit that was tailored to him, with wide shoulders but a tad shorter than Montgomery.

He was tall, dark, and handsome, with a huge smile and dimples. “I’m Pepper,” he said. “I see you know my boy, Salt.” Salt and pepper, cute.

Swayze grinned, letting him take her hand in his. “Yeah, but I know him by Montgomery.”

Pepper laughed. “Yeah, you can call me Henry Brown if you want too.”

“Nice to meet you, Henry.”

“This is my lawyer friend I was telling you about. The sheriff’s son.”

Swayze’s face fell, and Montgomery noticed it. He reached out and dragged her out of her seat. “We were just about to dance, brother. Can I catch you sometime later? Or maybe you can come by the ranch while you’re here?”

Pepper nodded. “Sure thing. See you soon. Nice to meet you.”

Swayze grinned and turned her head to look up at Mont. “I won’t tell him about you if you don’t want me to, but I think it’s a good idea if we can track your brother down.”

Swayze let Mont shuffle them into the midst of the dance floor. Swayze noticed Abigail and Kaden on the other end and the look of love on Abigail’s face. She loved Kaden despite his anger and rage.

Like she loved her brother despite his illness.

Not the way he wanted her to love him, but she did love him.

“My brother was in the Marine Corps the first few years I was married. In some kind of special operations thing. He disappears, and he is good at it.”

Montgomery’s grip tightened on her. “You’re making me want to go hunt Pepper down now—”

“I don’t know if it’s him or not because the other times he zeroed in on me quickly. He didn’t play games like this, but—there hadn’t been any men in my life any of those times. This is the first time that I’ve been with someone since Dylan. He could be angry, or it could not be him.”

Mont dipped his head to kiss her deep, right there in front of God and everybody, but after a few moments of his mouth, she didn’t care anymore.

“Our bull-riding champion is in the house tonight.”

Montgomery grunted something into her mouth and pulled away to smile. The audience loved every minute of it, but Swayze wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

He tossed his hand up in the air.

“You want to ride something for the rodeo coming in a few months?” someone shouted.

“How about for my daughter’s birthday?”

Mont turned to face the crowd and gestured for the DJ to play a song. “I want to dance with my girl, right now.”

Laughter mixed with disappointment howled, and Mont laughed at the red on Swayze’s face.

“Look at you. Famous in a small town.”

He narrowed his light eyes and grinned.

“You would think riding those bulls would have knocked some sense into you, but here you are, dancing with me. The walking target. Maybe riding the bulls did knock a screw or two lose.”

Mont howled with laughter. “Come here, girl. I got something for you to ride.”

***

Swayze spent the night twirling and dancing her cares away until everyone started to slowly file out and go home.

Montgomery pulled her head into his lap on the way to pick up the kids and twirled his fingers around her hair. When they stopped, Swayze went to sit up, but Mont pushed her back down toward the truck seat. “I’ll get ‘em.”

Swayze watched as Montgomery neared the door, and the front porch light turned off. Maybe Lena didn’t want Montgomery to see her?

Or the house.

Swayze giggled. She’d felt like that the first time she saw Mont. Wanting to hide her insecurities away from him.

He carried two sleeping babies on his shoulders, so she slid into the driver’s seat and turned the truck on. Once Mont settled in the passenger seat, she started down the road.

She loved the look of peace on their faces and the safety Ryker felt.

Montgomery would be a good daddy; it was plain as day.

Swayze swallowed the lump of fear in her throat.

She deserved to be happy again, didn’t she?

***

Swayze woke to a pain in her neck and lower back. Opening one eye, she cringed at the morning sun shining through her windows. She groaned and reached over to an empty bed. She’d slept with both kids sandwiched in between Montgomery and her.

Shooting up, she noticed a note on the pillow beside her that said Mont had taken the kids to get something to eat and dropped them off at the ranch. Swayze sighed, un-tucking herself from the tangled sheets and tiptoeing across the wooden floor.

Her T-shirt was long enough to hit mid-ass, but she couldn’t help but want to see the look on Montgomery’s face when he came back. The coffee was ready, so she poured herself a cup and leaned back against the counter of the sink.

Mont’s truck stopped a few moments later, and she walked over to greet him at the door. He held a bag of what looked like fresh croissants from the deli, and he looked like sin. Those large shoulders she loved to hang onto were hugged by a simple T-shirt, but it fit him so perfectly with long-slung jeans.

The backward baseball cap made him look ten years younger, but it was that pep in his step that made Swayze’s heart skip a beat.

He walked inside the house, dropping the paper and food onto the table and scooping her up to press her against the door. Hovering dangerously close to her mouth, he gave her a soft kiss, biting and licking, then pulling back until she opened her mouth wider.

“What you want, baby girl?” he asked with a laugh.

“Kiss me.”

“I am,” he whispered, his breath smelled like coffee and mint.

“Kiss me right,” Swayze threatened.

Montgomery cupped her jaw and opened her mouth to kiss her deep and hard, giving her what she wanted until her lips felt sensitive and she began to wiggle against him.

Mont’s erection pressed against her panties, making her soak them through. Swayze laughed at the hormones that raced through her. “What you got there?” she asked.

Montgomery squeezed her ass cheek in his palm and dropped her to the floor. With weak knees, she pulled a raspberry croissant from the bag and picked up the newspaper.

She gasped and dropped her food.

They had made the headlines of the small newspaper. There she was, clear as day, looking at the camera as Montgomery whispered in her ear.

“We’re both famous in a small town now, looks like,” he said.

“No. No. No,” she said. “He’ll find me like this. I swear to you, he will.”

Mont picked up the paper and shook his head. “No way. He’d have to already know you’re here.”

“No,” she whispered. “He helped me with Google Pictures to find a guy from high school one time. He took a picture I had and uploaded it and came up with anything that matched him with links.”

Montgomery’s face turned serious. “I can ask them to take it down.”

“Then everyone will know.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll pay them not to.”

“It’s already up on the internet,” she whispered, tears strolling down her cheeks. It wasn’t what she wanted, but the memory banged at her head like a sledgehammer.

The Texas heat had been so bad that she slept with her window cracked in the living room. Ryker was drenched with sweat because the air units weren’t cooling the small apartment.

Part of her tried to stay up at night to make sure no one could get in, but she’d been so tired working two jobs to keep her eyes open.

Something, she called it God, had woken her up to a sound against the living room floor.

Swayze sat up in her bed, knowing the flowerpot she’d placed on the windowsill, as a booby trap, had fallen in the dark corner of the room. He was inside.

Sliding the covers from her, she grabbed the knife hidden in her bedside drawer and their bags. Ryker still lay asleep on the bed. The bedroom door was locked, and after a few moments, she heard the sound of a lock pick at the door handle.

Tears ran down her tightened cheeks as she grabbed her apartment keys and Ryker. He stirred awake, rubbing his eyes and whining. The picking stopped, and she heard the sound of footsteps, but she didn’t hesitate for a moment. She slipped from the window, grabbing her two lightweight getaway bags, to the fire escape on the other side.

Ryker began to cry for his juice, and Swayze hushed him on their way down. The stairs above her began to rattle and shake the staircase. Sobs clung to her throat and plugged her voice.

The street where she could find a cab was two blocks away, and she had to lose him before he got on a straight stretch because she knew he’d catch them.

Once her feet hit the ground, she risked a look back to see her brother racing down the steps toward them. She screamed louder than she knew she could and ran harder toward the corner of the building.

She fumbled against the stray rocks that tore against her bare feet but held Ryker close and their two bags she had ready by the window.

He whined as they took another corner. Just one more block, and she’d be there.

Fear had grabbed her throat so tight she couldn’t breathe or dare look back to see if he was close. In her mind, he was always right there within inches of them.

She turned the last corner, seeing a cab parked at the end of the block, the driver half asleep.

Words, she couldn’t remember, blasted from her, and the driver woke suddenly, his phone landing in his lap.

She pulled the back door open and shut it. “Lock the doors!” she screamed.

The driver looked around and jumped as her brother slammed his fists against the hood of the cab, but the driver locked the doors just in time. “Drive, please! He is trying to kill me!”

Ryker began to cry and rub his eyes, but Swayze couldn’t look away from her brother staring at her through the front windshield.

His blue eyes were vibrant in the moonlit street, a black hood covered what she knew as a square forehead. Her brother had always been handsome and kind. What had happened to him?

After the driver calmed himself enough, he turned the key and brought the cab to life and spun tires backward, ramming a car in an amateur way of escape.

Poor guy…

The alarm from the other car wouldn’t keep her brother in place for long; she hoped it was long enough for her to get the hell out of dodge.

Mont pulled her out of her nightmare quickly, shaking her shoulders and bringing her face close to his.

“Sweet girl,” he cooed. “You’re safe with me.”

Swayze let the outbreak of emotion out and onto Montgomery’s shirt.