Taking Charge Page 5

  And there it is, the reason he’s here.

  Not me.

  The land.

  The ugly greed in his eyes made Lucy shudder. How had she not seen it earlier? On the surface, he was an attractive-enough man, but it didn’t take much to see who he really was.

  In that moment of desperation, with her emotions in a tailspin, she considered his offer. Saying yes would free her from him, but it would also give him the water rights to the area. It would cripple any chance of the ranch ever being used for cattle in the future. It was also the place where her great-great-grandparents had built the first family home. There were memories on that land, even a small cemetery. It wasn’t an easy yes.

  It would be so easy to leave.

  Admit that I don’t belong here.

  But who will I be then?

  How far is that from becoming like Steven or my mother?

  Lucy shook her head and said, “By tomorrow I’ll be able to pay you most of what I owe you. I should have the rest within six months. I’m sorry, but my answer is no.”

  The calm man of a moment before fell away like a disguise, and his expression twisted in anger. “We could have done this amicably, but you’re dead set to make it ugly. If you don’t give that land to me, everything that happens after I walk out of here is on your head. You don’t want to cross me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you, and you’re not getting my land. Now kindly get out of my house.”

  Ted firmly placed his hat back on his head. “Oh, I will, but do you know how many of the men out there work for me? All of them. That is, they used to. I wonder how good you’ll feel about sitting in your house while you watch them lose theirs.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Consider it done—unless you’ve changed your mind. No? You’ve never been very bright, Lucy. I wonder how you’ll leave here when you lose—like your brother or like your mother?”

  Lucy gasped at the ugliness of his words.

  “I’ve heard enough,” a male voice said in a deadly tone.

  Lucy swung around. David.

  He was standing in the doorway beside Wyatt. They both looked angry to the point of violence.

  “Who are you?” Ted demanded.

  “Someone who can buy and sell your pathetic ass ten times over.” David took out a checkbook. “How much does she owe you? I know all about the contract she signed with you. I’m prepared to pay you what she owes right now. Then I’ll give you exactly two minutes to get your sorry self and your men off this property.”

  “Or you’ll do what?” Ted snarled.

  Lucy stood in paralyzed silence as the scene unfolded. She kept shaking her head, but none of the men in the room were paying attention to her. No. No. No.

  This isn’t right.

  If David pays off Ted, how has anything changed?

  What have I proved about myself?

  All I will have done is lose again.

  David handed his phone to Wyatt. “I’ve never cared much for technology, but every phone now records video. Funny thing about the Internet. Once things get on there, they’re impossible to make disappear. I started recording as soon as we walked in and guessed where this was headed. The way I see it, the next part of the video can either include you graciously accepting a check from me to cover what Lucy owes, or it can be what justifies the beating I give you when you refuse. Your choice.”

  “Two hundred fifty thousand,” Ted said, as if that would change David’s mind.

  David wrote out a check and threw it at him. “Take it and get the hell out of here. Now.”

  Ted looked from Lucy to David. He wanted to say something else, that much was obvious, but he glanced over at Wyatt, who was still filming, and pocketed the check. With a smile at the camera, he said, “I have my money, and I didn’t marry a cheating whore. In the end, I did win.”

  In a flash, David closed the short distance between them and punched him full in the face. Ted fell to the floor, then scrambled back to his feet and wiped blood from his nose. “I don’t know who you are, but you’ll regret this.”

  David shot Wyatt a signal to stop filming. Then he said, “Rule one of battle. Know your enemy and what they’re capable of. If I see you around Lucy again, I will kill you with my bare hands, and there isn’t a court in Texas that’ll convict me. Think about that when you consider tangling with me.”

  “Fuck you. You can have her.” Ted stormed out, and the room fell silent.

  David turned to Lucy and walked over to ask her if she was okay.

  All the emotion that had been building in Lucy burst forth, and she slapped him.

  David’s head snapped back, then he rubbed his cheek and shook his head in confusion. “What the hell was that for?”

  Fighting back angry tears, Lucy said, “You had no right.”

  He was still puffed up with adrenaline and too much testosterone. “He was threatening you.”

  A part of Lucy acknowledged that, but fury was whipping through her. She hated herself for believing Ted again, even for a moment. She couldn’t understand why she’d simply stood there letting them discuss her fate as if she were no more capable of thinking for herself than the steers outside.

  Instead of feeling freed from her debt, she felt like she’d been bought. Again. This time by a man who was looking so proud of himself, she wanted to smack him again. Even harder than before because part of her loved how he’d jumped to her defense. Maybe kick him once or twice for how gorgeous he looked as he did it, how she’d found herself both excited and furious with him at the same time.

  I should have yelled for them to stop.

  I should have told David to keep his money.

  No wonder men keep taking over my life—I let them.

  That ends now.

  “I told you not to come.” Everything she should have told Ted she now said to David. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want to owe anyone anything. By tomorrow night you’ll have a check for most of it. I don’t know how, but I’ll pay you back the rest. Every last penny.”

  “You don’t have to rush, Lucy. I did it because I care—”

  “Don’t say it. Those are just words people throw around to try to control each other. I don’t want anything from you. And stop looking like you think I should thank you. All you did was make me hate myself more. Get out of my house.”

  David looked across to Wyatt for support, but the older man walked over and said, “When a woman asks a gentleman to leave, he does. Come on.” He guided a reluctant-looking David out of the house.

  Only after the door closed behind them did Lucy allow her tears to fall. She sank to her knees and wept into her hands. Her tears were those of anger and regret. Of all the times she’d imagined how she would feel if she ever saw David again, she’d never imagined she could hate him.

  Or is it just me I hate?

  Lucy wiped away her tears and stood. She was shaking from head to toe, but she forced herself to calm down. If I stay in here, it’s my fault no one thinks I can do this. My daddy raised me to be stronger.

  She opened the door and stepped out onto her porch. Ted and his men were gone. Wyatt stood with the men he’d brought over, showing them David’s video. David was standing off to one side as if he were uncomfortable with what Wyatt was doing.

  At her appearance, David took a step toward Lucy, then stopped and waited. One by one, the men turned and looked toward the porch. It was a pivotal moment, and Lucy knew it. They want to know what I’m made of. Am I victim or a fighter?

  She raised her voice and used a tone she’d often heard her daddy use. “Well, what are all y’all waiting for? We’ve got cattle to load.”

  And just like that the men went back to saddling up their horses and positioning the fencing.

  Wyatt nodded his approval.

  David held her gaze for a long, sad moment—long enough for Lucy to regret most of what she’d said to him, but that didn’t stop her from feeling that she could never be wit
h him until she was no longer in debt to him.

  She looked away and walked over to join some men who were deciding which stock trailer to fill first. She asked what she could do to help, and was soon positioning the vehicles with precision. She might not know how to run the ranch, but she’d certainly done her share of work on it.

  Wyatt came to stand beside the door of a truck she’d just parked. “Do you think you were a mite hard on your friend?”

  Lucy’s eyes scanned the area until she located David on horseback helping the men drive the cattle onto the rigs. “He’s not my friend. I barely know him.”

  “He appears to have some strong feelings for you.”

  “Appearances are often deceiving.”

  Wyatt tipped his hat lower and looked in David’s direction. “Making one man pay for another man’s sins doesn’t right any wrongs.”

  Lucy stepped out of the truck and sighed. “I want to feel bad about what I said to him, but I’m drowning in guilt already. I don’t have room to feel bad about anything else.”

  Wyatt looked back at Lucy and looped his thumbs through his belt. “You would have had a nasty fight on your hands with Ted.”

  “I need to believe I would have won,” Lucy said, just above a whisper. Maybe I didn’t lose today, but I didn’t win either. David stole that opportunity from me, and I don’t know if I can forgive him for it.

  The challenge of loading the stock trailers left little time for David to reflect much on Lucy’s negative reaction to what he’d considered a grand gesture of his feelings for her. A man could easily get killed if he let his attention wander while convincing eight hundred head of cattle to do something they had no desire to do. It wasn’t until the tractor-trailers were pulling out of the driveway that David turned his attention back to the reason he’d driven to Mavis.

  Lucy Albright.

  Will I ever understand that woman?

  He dismounted the horse he’d borrowed from one of the men, returned it to him, then scanned the area for Lucy and frowned when he didn’t see her. After Sarah’s phone call the night before, David had prepared to step in and help Lucy. Sarah had told him all about the loan and how Lucy was trying to break free from York but was afraid she’d lose everything in the process.

  David had never been one to walk away from someone he felt needed him. His only regrets in life were the times he’d let himself be convinced to. After speaking to Sarah, David had felt positive he belonged in Mavis, helping Lucy.

  He knew she’d be skittish at first, same as when she’d avoided him at Sarah and Tony’s wedding. That didn’t worry him none. He’d been confident he could win her trust and she’d accept his help. He hadn’t imagined it would take long for their attraction to each other to lead to more. And more was what he wanted with her. Now. In the future. It was something he’d tried to deny when he heard Lucy was engaged, but he’d come to accept that without her, his life would always feel as if it were missing something.

  Lucy was the something that had kept him feeling restless.

  David had never paid much mind to people who spoke about love at first sight, even though his own father claimed he’d known by the end of their first date that he would marry David’s mother. It was an outdated, ridiculous idea, but dismissing it would be harder to do after today.

  When he’d heard that asshole threaten Lucy, David had been filled with a rage like none he’d felt before. He’d joked with Tony about possibly having to kill someone to save Lucy, but there’d been nothing funny about how easily David would have done just that if York had lifted a hand to her. As it was, David had been hard-pressed to stop at one punch.

  His fierce, almost primal protectiveness of Lucy was too real to deny. He wanted her—in his bed, in his life. She belonged with him. In his mind, it wasn’t a question of if they would be together, but of how soon.

  He replayed the scene in her house as it had unfolded. He could see her standing there proudly, declaring how she wasn’t afraid of York, her long brown mane of hair swinging back and forth each time she shook her head. She was thinner than he remembered, and the faint circles beneath her worried eyes had torn at his heartstrings.

  He’d fantasized about what it would be like to spend a wild night in her arms, but when he’d seen how hard she was trying to look brave, he’d been filled with an equal desire to simply hold her. Hug her until his strength became hers.

  She was a woman in need of protecting, and it was hard for David to understand how trying to do just that had gotten him thrown out of her house.

  Wyatt came to stand beside him. They’d exchanged only a few words before they entered Lucy’s house. That brief conversation had ended as soon as David had learned that York was inside, talking to Lucy. Berating his woman. Even though he had just met Wyatt, David had a sense of who he was. Integrity shone in the proud lines of his grizzled face. Wyatt was a man who looked a person right in the eye, spoke with a soft voice, but would likely kick the tar out of someone he felt needed the correction. “I’ll be heading out to Abilene to complete the sale for Miss Lucy. She wanted to come, but I told her to stay here. Someone needs to watch this place and make sure York’s men don’t return.”

  David nodded. He wasn’t going anywhere until he knew Lucy was safe.

  Wyatt said, “One of the boys looked you up on his smartphone. Seems like you’ve done well for yourself over in Fort Mavis, what with your horse training and all.”

  “I do all right.”

  “Said you’re in all sorts of commercials. Showed me one or two.”

  David shrugged and kicked the dirt. “It’s for charity. They say my face sells tickets. I prefer working with horses. But I must have sucker written on my forehead, because somehow I keep ending up on TV.”

  Wyatt looked David over again, as if assessing his character. “Doing good ain’t nothing to be ashamed of no matter how damn-fool ridiculous you look in those commercials.”

  David arched an eyebrow at that comment, and Wyatt cackled. “Thank you, I think.”

  “You ever think of relocating some of your business out here? This town needs a man like you—someone Ted York can’t buy and sell. Times are tough. Jobs are hard to find in these parts. The six men who came to help today feel good about what they’ve done, but that won’t put food on their tables come Monday.”

  True enough. “I’ve considered getting a place of my own, but relocating here would be a bit premature.” He rubbed the cheek Lucy had smacked.

  Wyatt nodded at the house. “Anything worthwhile is worth the trouble. She’s in a rough place, and I’m not sure you made things better today. York wants her property, and he thought he had leverage to get it. He ain’t above playing dirty to get what he wants, so paying off the loan won’t stop him. I keep asking myself why. I don’t know, but my gut tells me Miss Lucy ain’t safe yet. Don’t let her run you off.”

  Wyatt was preaching to the wrong choir. Lucy was the one who needed convincing. “She told me to leave.”

  Wyatt shrugged. “She hired me as her ranch manager, seeing how she needs someone to keep up the outbuildings and such. That’s more work than one man can handle. I considered hiring someone to help me, but Lucy can’t afford to pay anyone yet. It might be a bit of an unconventional setup, but you could stay in the ranch-hand house, ship over some of your horses to train, and possibly hire on a few men to help with those horses.”

  David looked at Wyatt to assess the seriousness of his suggestion. “Isn’t that similar to the setup York had? I can’t imagine Lucy going along with that.”

  Wyatt rubbed his chin and stared off across the field beside the house. “That’s because you’re not seein’ the most important difference ’tween the situations.”

  “And that is?”

  Wyatt smiled. “Miss Lucy never cared for York, not romantic-like, but she looks at you the same way my wife used to look at me when I was working up the nerve to ask her out. Women are complex creatures, but just like horses, if you watch ’e
m close enough, you can read them. I’ve known Lucy most of her life. She likes you. She hates you, too. If a man cared enough, he could work that through.”

  David couldn’t believe he was considering Wyatt’s idea, but a better one hadn’t come to him. “So, which one of us gets the pleasure of telling Lucy I work here now?”

  Wyatt gave David a pat on the shoulder. “I would, but I’m late already. I have to be in Abilene before four. Good luck to you. Hopefully you’ll be here when I get back.”

  Chapter Four

  From the window of her father’s office, Lucy watched Wyatt and David talking. Part of her wanted to rush outside and apologize to David before he left. The mess she was in wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t Ted with a sinister agenda.

  He had no way of knowing how much I needed to prove something to myself today.

  I want to be grateful, to trust, but he handed over $250,000 to Ted. Why? Because he cares about me?

  That’s a lot of money to drop and not expect something in return.

  He said he wants me. Did he think I was for sale? If he’d asked me, I would have turned the money down.

  Wyatt climbed into his truck, and David waved good-bye, then turned to face the house. He caught her watching him, and their eyes locked. Lucy’s cheeks warmed as desire licked through her. She tried to deny it, tried to look away, but she couldn’t.

  Please leave, David. Get in your truck and drive back to Fort Mavis. I’m not ready for how you make me feel.

  David clearly didn’t receive her silent plea, or he decided to ignore it. With a nod in her direction, he started walking toward her house. Lucy stepped away from the window and hurried out of the room, closing and locking the door behind her. Just because I sell sex toys online doesn’t mean I’m an easy mark.

  She imagined herself standing naked with David’s arms around her while he bent to tease one of her excited nipples with his mouth. She hadn’t even kissed him, but her body hummed with the pleasure it knew his hands and mouth could bring her.

  Apparently, I should purchase some of those toys for myself. To take the edge off. Two years without sex can muddle the brain—makes me want to pounce on a man I hardly know.