Page 20 of The Cowboy's Downfall
Plus, the car, the truck, the savings accounts, and the 401k…
But he left all that out, because then he’d feel the need to add how she’d drained his bank account yet again, which depressed him. Not over the money, although being so deep in debt to Ryan O’Connell was akin to having one’s soul owned by the devil. The depressing part was over not being able to say no when he knew he should, all because Peg shed a few tears. She could have—shouldhave—called her parents, explained the situation, and got their refunded airfare from them so she could come home.
And yes, he should have manned up and said so to her. He didn’t need Too Good pointing it out to him like he was some dumb, backwoods yap.
Too Good didn’t ask any follow-up questions, however. He caught her rubbing her wrist, and he flipped the interior light on so he could see why. Bright red spots shaped like fingerprints marred her smooth skin.
“Hell. Did I do that?” He leaned forward to get a closer look, but she stuck her hand behind her back.
“It’s nothing.”
Guilt sucker-punched him. He didn’t want her thinking he was some testosterone-driven, bull-riding jerk whose wife—ex-wife—got the house and all his worldly goods in the divorce because he’d physically abused her.
“It’s not nothing. My mother raised a gentleman. I know how to treat women,” he said stiffly.
“I’m a lawyer. I might work in real estate, but I know the signs of domestic abuse when I see them.”
His neck started to burn. “Now hang on a second. I have never—not once—harmed a woman.” He remembered her wrist, with his fingerprints on it. “Not on purpose.”
Shauna’s eyes widened. “Oh, I never thought for a moment that you were the abuser.”
He let that sink in. “You thinkIwas abused?”
She took on that snippy lawyer voice he found hot for reasons beyond his control. “Physical violence isn’t the only form of domestic abuse. Men are particularly susceptible to emotional manipulation. They don’t question it when women take over the social aspects of their lives or manage their money for them—right down to taking charge of their paychecks. Men see it as a division of labor, because that’s what they’re led to believe. The male partner shovels the driveway, mows the lawn, and takes out the garbage. Meanwhile, she does all the banking, the shopping, and manages his downtime.”
Nix didn’t like the picture she painted despite the hot tone she used. “That’s not what happened.”
“No?” One of Shauna’s eyebrows went up. “I think I’ve got a fairly clear snapshot. Your ex-wife got the house in the divorce. She got most of the money too, or you would have been sleeping in motels or an apartment, not at truck stops. And yet she calls, and you still run for the phone as if your life depended on it. Either your lawyer was useless, or you gave her everything she asked for because the fight wasn’t worth it to you. You refusing to react took control away from her, and she can’t have that, so she continues to call.” She nestled her butt more comfortably into the seat and faced him head-on. “Let me ask you a question. How many of your friends from before you were married have you kept in touch with? What about your family? Did she find fault with all of them? Did she make you choose her side if they criticized her, or offended her in any way, no matter how small? What if you wanted to do something she hadn’t planned?”
He broke into a cold, full body sweat. “That’s more than one question. And you’re jumping to a whole lot of conclusions.”
“Am I? You can’t seem to manage a troubled teenage girl. I can only imagine how a manipulative wife might mess with your head.”
She’d gotten the manipulative part right. But as for the rest? He was pretty sure Too Good was the one messing with him right now. But the topic had changed, and he seized on it the way an unseated rider hugged the rails while bullfighters and barrelmen distracted an angry bull.
“Your sister’s trouble, not troubled. I can handle her,” he said, with more bravado than truth. He’d manage somehow. He’d figure it out.
“Really?” Her eyes slid from his before snapping back. “Prove it. Deal with her the same way you’d deal with one of the boys. Think you can do that?”
Those eyes told him she was back onto him chasing a seventeen-year-old child and he didn’t like it.
“If you’re worried because your little sister’s crushing on me, I thought we’d established that I prefer women,” he said, and she must not have liked his tone either, because she got all kinds of huffy.
“While you might prefer women, you’ve got no clue about how to set boundaries with them. Or teenaged girls,” she said.
There was enough truth in that to smart more than a little. What would it take to get under her skin the way she got under his? Except he didn’t want to simply get under her skin. He wanted to get her into bed and explore every hot, irritating inch of it.
“Thinking back on it, I probably overreacted,” he said. “She was likely just trying to make Remi jealous. They really seem to be hitting it off now though, so that’s one worry gone. She’s driven him home a few times this week after he’s missed the bus.”
“Shewhat?”
Now he was getting somewhere. “Maybe you should deal with her as if she’s an ex-wife,” he suggested. “Set some of those boundaries.”
Too Good pulled herself together. “Speaking of boundaries. I apologize for the other night. I thought it was cute that Taryn has a crush on you, and because of that, my sense of humor took things too far. I never should have provoked you that way.”
Her sense of humor. Right.
“Provoked me how?”
