Troublemaker Read online

  “What about your dad? You close to him?”

  “No. He pretty much forgot about me when he left. He remarried, adopted his new wife’s kids, had a couple more of their own, and that’s his family now. I think they’re living in Sacramento, but that was years ago so they may well be somewhere else by now.”

  He got the picture. It wasn’t awful, but neither was it pretty: ignored, abandoned, jerked around from place to place. No wonder she had walls.

  “What about you?” she asked, slanting him a sideways glance from those dark eyes, turning the tables on him. “Have you been married? What about your family?”

  “My dad is dead, from a fall in the kitchen. He hit his head on the corner of the cabinets. That was almost fifteen years ago. My mom remarried year before last, to an okay guy. He loves her and takes care of her, and that’s good enough for me.”

  She waited a minute, probably to see if he’d answer her first question. “What about marriage?”

  “Never been married, no kids. I came close to getting hitched once, but it didn’t work out. It’s hard on a wife when the husband is in my line of work. I’m out of the country more often than I’m in it.” His heart hadn’t been broken either, because the truth was he could remember his fiancée’s name, but not really how she looked.

  “I can see where that would be a problem,” she admitted.

  “How about you? Ever been married?”

  “Once. I tried it when I was twenty-one, fresh out of college. It lasted less than six months before he cheated.”

  “Ouch.” He’d been keeping an eye on the clock and he had a good idea how long frozen pizzas were supposed to heat, having eaten more than a few of them in his life. He slid off the stool. “Sorry I haven’t been paying more attention, but I don’t know where you keep stuff. Point me in the direction of the plates and things and I’ll set the table.”

  She looked surprised, dark brows arching. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

  “Carrying two plates?” he asked testily. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Don’t get cranky about it. The plates are there—” She pointed toward one of the cabinet doors. “The glasses are there, and the silverware is there.”

  “Why do we need silverware?”

  She chuckled. “I don’t guess we do.”

  As he collected the plates and glasses he said, “I like the barn. You did a good job.” The kitchen cabinets were kind of beat up, but it was like they were supposed to look that way. Big industrial-looking lights hung from the high ceiling, as well as steel ceiling fans. Considering how high the ceiling was, the fans were a necessity. The layout was open from one end to the other, the only real privacy either in the bathroom or the rooms upstairs. It would be a great bachelor pad, out here in the middle of the country, nothing restricted or fussy about the building.

  “Thanks. It wasn’t renovated in my taste, but I suppose over the years it’s become mine. It’s my furniture, and that helps. Plus no one else has ever lived here, and in a way that makes it more mine.”

  “Except for the cows.”

  That got a smile from her. “Cows don’t count.”

  He set the plates on the table, added napkins. As he headed back to get the glasses he said, “What do you want to drink?”

  “Grab a couple of beers from the fridge.”

  His head came up, his attention laser-focused on her. “Beer? You have beer?” She’d been giving him milk when there was beer?

  “If you’re steady enough on your feet to carry crockery, you’re steady enough to have a beer. Plus you aren’t on any pain meds; I wouldn’t let you mix them.”

  “Beer,” he muttered, opening the refrigerator door and yes, thank you, Jesus, there were five dark brown bottles there. He hooked his fingers around the necks of two of them and pulled them out. They weren’t Bud or Miller; there was a pig on the label. He tilted the bottles up to look at them. “Naked Pig? Never heard of it.”

  “Back Forty is a little brewery in Alabama. One of the guys in town is a truck driver and every time he goes through there he stops and picks up an order for the devotees here. I like Naked Pig.”

  She was into microbreweries. He didn’t care. She was a beer-drinking woman, and life was looking better by the minute.

  She pointed toward a bottle cap opener that was stuck on the stainless steel refrigerator by a magnet. He popped the tops off, tossed them in the trash. “You want yours in a glass?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Girly.”

  She grinned. “That’s my beer, so watch your mouth or you won’t get any.”

  He chuckled and poured the beers into glasses—his, too, though he’d have been just as happy to drink it out of the bottle. Her beer, her rules. He’d buy the next delivery.

  He almost moaned aloud as the first cold sip slid down his throat. The bubbles snapped on his tongue, and the crispness of the taste made him want to down the whole glass at one go. “Damn, that’s good,” he sighed.

  She checked the pizza. “Just another minute or so.” Tricks had trotted over when she opened the oven door and stood looking up, hope in every line of her furry pale gold body. “No, nothing for you,” Bo said. “You’ve already had your dinner. I’m not baking cookies.”

  He said, “You bake cookies?”

  “She gets cookies for her birthday.”

  “That’s tomorrow, right?”

  “No, it’s quite a while until her birthday.”

  “Mine’s tomorrow,” he lied.

  “It is not. I saw your driver’s license, remember?”

  “It’s a fake.”

  “I’m not baking cookies.”

  Morgan consoled himself with the beer, silently pleased at how well the last half hour of conversation had gone. They’d teased each other—a little—and she’d given him an insight into what had made her so reserved and self-protective. He hadn’t made a big deal of it, she hadn’t made a big deal of it, but he knew damn well it was a big deal because it had to be. Kids needed stability, and she hadn’t had that.

  She took the pizza out of the oven and briskly zipped the pizza cutter through it, then brought the pan to the table and set it on a pot holder. As she sat down, she turned her head to check on Tricks, and the late afternoon light fell on her right cheekbone. It looked as if she had a faint smear of dirt on her face. He started to say something, then realized she’d done a damn good job of covering the lingering bruise. Some of the makeup had worn off, or he might not have noticed either. Then he realized she’d been covering up the bruise all along because he hadn’t noticed it since Friday night.

  She didn’t want people fussing over her, or thinking she was anything except one hundred percent okay.

  She could have been milking it for all she was worth, and he knew a lot of people who would have. Instead she preferred to be left alone.

  They concentrated on the pizza and beer, and for the first time since he’d been shot, Morgan felt as if he was himself again, rather than a patched-up wreck. Did things get more normal than beer and pizza? He was still a patched-up wreck, but he was a wreck who was starting to get back to being human.

  After dinner, she cleaned up and headed out with Tricks for their last walk of the day. He stood in the large windows and watched until they were out of sight, partly to make certain he knew in what direction they’d gone and partly because he liked looking at her curvy little ass.

  While he had some privacy, he decided to test the limits of his strength. He wasn’t expecting miracles, but he wanted some kind of parameter he could judge his progress by. Going over to the stairs, he held firmly to the steel banister and began climbing.

  The first step was okay; the second one was okay. The third one was mostly okay, but by the sixth one his knees were weak and he was breaking out in a sweat, which he took as a signal not to push his luck. He eased back down while he could still do it without having to scoot on his ass like a toddler. Tomorrow he would try it again, and maybe he co