Page 112 of Cowboy's Last Stand
“You don’t like to brawl?”
“No.”
“You haven’t been in a fight before?”
“I have,” he admitted.
“When?”
He took another sip from his bottle.“When I was in the sixth grade, Johnny Mitchell called my mom a whore.I told him I wanted to fight after school, and he obliged me.”
“Who won?”
“He did.He had two years and about twenty pounds on me.I ended up with a black eye, a busted lip, and a mouthful of loose teeth.Even so, I got lucky.”
“How?”
His lips curved into a smile.“Because the next day, Henrietta Birdsong kissed me on the cheek and told me I was brave.I had a major crush on her.”He leaned back against the glider and propped one arm on the backrest.“Let’s just say I have no regrets.”
“What happened to her?”
“Last I heard, she became a tribal lawyer in Missoula.”
“That’s what your mother wanted for you.”
He shrugged.“Some things don’t work out.”
“No,” she said.“They don’t.”
The smile on his face faded.They had to discuss the major thing that hadn’t worked out for Natalie: her marriage to a man with a dangerous job and a hero complex.
“You were right about the settlement,” she said tersely.“I haven’t touched it.I told myself I was putting the money away for Marcus, but the truth is that I haven’t been able to come to terms with Mike’s death.They gave me this lump sum, this cold calculation of the cost of his life, and I was expected to just… accept it.I almost gave it all to charity because the thought of spending it made me ill.”
Jason stayed quiet, listening.
“For the first few months, the grief was so heavy that I could hardly get up in the morning to take care of Marcus.Then I started to feel numb, and that was better.I’ve been sort of frozen, I guess, because it helped me survive.It eased the pain.That money is frozen too.It’s become tied up with Mike’s death in my mind.As unreasonable as it sounds, I might never be able to spend it.”
Saying nothing, he rose from the glider.He went to the porch railing and leaned his elbows against the balustrade.She studied his back as he stared out at the deserted street.The new mailbox glinted in the moonlight.
“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done around here.I hope you know that.”
“I don’t want your gratitude,” he said in a low voice.
Her muscles tensed with unease.She was baring her soul to him, and he wasn’t satisfied.“What do you want?”
He turned to look at her, his eyes narrow.“You know what I want.”
Yes, she did.He wanted her heart and soul.He wanted to shove her out of mourning and force her to confront the reality she’d been avoiding for years.She shook her head in denial.“You want too much.”
He cursed under his breath.Perhaps he’d imagined this discussion going a different direction.He thought he could buy her flowers, crook his finger at her, and take her to bed again.She remembered what he’d said about women rarely saying no to him.He wasn’t used to expending any effort.
“You’re throwing away your future,” he said, “because you won’t let go of the past.”
She rose to her feet, annoyed.She wasn’t throwing anything away.She was trying to explain her choices to him, even though it was none of his damned business.The problem wasn’t her reluctance to move forward.It was his frenetic pace.He wanted everythingright now.“Maybe I need some time alone to figure things out.”
He gave her an assessing glance.“Is that what you told Wade?”
She flushed at the question.
