Dane's Return Read online

  He’d been living in a two-bit town without the resources to provide for her or the children they'd one day make together, and panic clawed at him because he could see that need for family in her eyes when she looked at him. She’d deserved better than what he’d been. And he'd just needed to breathe. Just for a little while. He’d needed to go and make something of himself—something that would make her and his mother proud—something that could erase the wild reputation he’d once worn like a badge of honor. He thought Charlotte had understood.

  Maybe she’d understood too well. Maybe it was only him who'd spent the last ten years tossing and turning with lust-filled dreams and wishing she was beside him. After his brothers told him she'd left town, he'd almost used his myriad of contacts to search for her. But what would have been the point? He'd still been building his career. Finding her just would have left a bitter taste in his mouth of something he couldn't have. At least not then.

  And now she didn't seem to want him. Other than to scratch her itch, it seemed.

  Dane opened his bag and dug around for his phone. There was barely enough battery life to make a call.

  "Sheriff MacKenzie," a familiar voice answered on the other end of the line.

  "What's going on, Sheriff?” he asked, smiling. “Are you in the middle of busting up a wild party, or are you reading a romance novel with your feet propped up on the desk?"

  "Ha, the only wild parties I see in this town are when someone's cattle breaks through the fence and they start eating Betsy Rose’s prized tulips. Where the hell are you? I can actually hear what you're saying without your reception being shitty."

  "I'm standing just down the road in front of Charlie's Automotive. I was wondering if I could get a ride."

  Silence greeted him on the other end of the line as Cooper weighed what to say. He obviously knew Charlotte was back in town, and he also knew that he or his other brothers hadn't mentioned the fact.

  "I'm on my way," Cooper finally said. "It's good to have you back, Dane."

  Charlie held off on the tears until Dane's body was just a shadow in her rearview mirror. God, she was so stupid. She couldn't go through this again. Her heart couldn't bear any more pain. It had taken her ten years to build her life back up after he'd walked out.

  She'd had a child to raise, and that had kept her mind busy enough to get through the first shock after Dane had left. But then Jayden had been born, and she'd been in that hospital room all alone. She'd held her son in her arms and stared into familiar crystalline eyes while tears ran down her cheeks. She'd sobbed away the last of her innocence in that Chicago hospital.

  And now he was back—at least for a while—and she was going to have to start the process of grieving all over again.

  She passed the white fence that lined her property and drove through the gate that led to the main house. Lights were still on in the foreman's house, but her own was dark save for the soft glow of the porch light. She hated coming home to an empty house. Things were too quiet without Jayden. And being alone gave her too much time to think.

  Charlie dried the tears from her eyes as she let herself in the house, and she vowed it would be the last time she cried over Dane MacKenzie. This was her home, at least until she found a buyer. She also had a son to raise and a business to run. She didn't have time for distractions or another broken heart.

  It wasn't until she was in the shower, soaping away the evidence of Dane's passion, that she realized he could very well have left her in the same position he had last time. Alone and pregnant.

  Chapter 4

  "So I guess you've already seen Charlie," Cooper said as Dane slid into the front seat of the police cruiser.

  Coop gave him a slow head to toe perusal, taking in his tousled hair and satisfied expression, and Dane felt heat rush to his cheeks. Coop raised a sardonic brow and waited for him to answer.

  "In a matter of speaking," he said, for lack of anything better. "Were you guys going to tell me she'd moved back to town, or were you going to keep it to yourselves?"

  Cooper was his older brother by only fourteen months, but their appearances were anything but similar. Coop's hair was black as midnight and his eyes were cobalt blue. Women went crazy over Coop’s eyes. A good bit of stubble covered his face and his long legs were cramped in the cruiser. It had always annoyed Dane that his older brother was a good two inches taller than his own six feet.

  "Would it have made a difference?" Coop asked. "She was here ten years ago and you still left. I thought you were over her."

  "It's complicated," Dane muttered.

  "I called Thomas and Riley on my way here. What do you say we grab a beer and welcome you back properly?"

  "If you can find a place that's open, I'm all for it."

  Coop chuckled. "You'll have to get used to the slow life again, city boy. Duffey's stays open until eleven now. I thought the city council was going to go into cardiac arrest when he petitioned to serve alcohol that late."

  They drove the short distance to the very end of the street where Duffey's Bar and Grill sat, isolated from the rest of the connected buildings in a squat log cabin. The lights were bright and the bass from the stereo thumped through the walls. A whoop caught Dane's attention, and he turned in time to avoid a full-on tackle from his youngest brother.

  "Son of a bitch. To what do we owe the pleasure?" Thomas asked, slinging his arm around his neck and squeezing in a good-natured embrace. Thomas was two years younger than Dane and shared similar looks with Cooper. The only difference was his eyes were dark brown instead of blue. Thomas had spent the last decade in medical school and had taken over the position of Surrender's only doctor after the last one had retired.

  "I was in the neighborhood and thought you might like to see my pretty face," Dane said. "It's got to be depressing for the three of you ugly women to sit around and stare at each other all day."

  He deflected the elbow to the ribs from Cooper and twisted out of Thomas's chokehold. Riley stood off at a distance, a smile plastered on his face and his hands in the pockets of a pair of warn chinos. His dark blonde hair was cut short and a light stubble shadowed his face. His eyes were a darker shade of Dane's.

  Riley was a doctor as well, only the PhD kind instead of medical. He was the dean of archaeology at a small private college not too far from Surrender, and when he wasn't teaching he was working on new excavation sites.

  "Welcome home, Dane," Riley said. "The beer's on you."

  They shoved at each other through the doors of Duffey's and everyone in attendance stopped, slack-jawed at the sight of the four MacKenzie brothers together again. The last time they'd come through the doors together a brawl had broken out. That was before Cooper became Sheriff, of course, and before the other MacKenzies became such fine, upstanding citizens. But people's memories tended to be long in Surrender.

  "You boys head to the back room,” Duffey shouted from behind the tap. “I'll have someone bring you a pitcher and glasses. I don't want any trouble in here tonight."

  Cooper rolled his eyes. "You'd think that fight had been our fault by the way Duffey carries on. It was the man's own low-life son-in-law who started it in the first place."

  "Yeah, but we finished it," Thomas said. "And I'm glad for it. No one should beat on a woman like that and get away with it."

  They settled themselves in the game room, and Dane propped his feet on a chair and waited for his turn at darts. Thomas and Riley were already starting a game.

  "So I heard you were out at Charlie's place," Thomas said, waggling his eyebrows. "You sure look relaxed, brother."

  Dane shot Coop a disapproving look. "It was the first place I came to when I walked into town. You can imagine my surprise at seeing her there, considering you guys didn't bother to tell me she was back in town. I'd have come home sooner if I'd know she was here."

  "Would you have really?" Riley asked, surprised.

  Dane watched as Thomas and Cooper shared a long look, and a tingle of awareness
started to prickle up his spine. It was the same tingle that had kept him from going down a certain path in the jungle or approaching an empty car in Afghanistan. The tingle had kept him from getting dead. But he had a feeling the axe was about to drop on his head just the same.

  "Why would you ask that? You guys know why I left. I just needed to get away for a while after mom died. I needed a career. Something that would make Charlotte proud of me. Hell, something that could make me proud of me. Leaving was the only way I knew how to do that. I had to leave her to make something of myself."

  "But did you explain that to her?" Riley pressed.

  Riley had always been the most sensitive or intuitive of the four of them. Unless someone called him that, and then he had a nasty right hook.

  "I’m just saying,” Riley continued. “She was just a kid. And hell, even we knew she was crazy about you. You weren't here to see what she was like after you left. You broke her heart to the point that she had to leave town just to get away from the memories. Everyone in town knew it and was talking about it. That can’t have been easy for her. You put her through hell. I'm not sure you're making the best judgment call messing with her again. Maybe you should just leave her alone."

  Rage simmered inside him. He'd let it reign free as a kid, always looking for a fight, but he'd learned to keep it contained as he got older. Except there was nothing he wanted more than to take a swing at Riley and bloody his lip. And by the crooked smile on Riley's face and the gleam in his eye, he'd gladly take the punch and throw some of his own. There was an anger in Riley he hadn’t noticed before.

  "Is that what you all think of me?" Dane asked, looking around at his brothers. "That I just left because I'm just a selfish bastard who wanted to be free to do whatever the hell I wanted? That I didn’t care about any of you?"

  He stood abruptly, his chair hitting the wall in his haste. His brothers stared at him warily.

  "We don't blame you for leaving, Dane," Coop said softly. "We know mom's death hit you hardest. And we know she would have wanted you to do something important with your degree. But ten years is a long time. People change. Everybody's changed. And people move on. There’s no need dragging things back into the past."

  "How long do you plan to stay this time?" Thomas asked, his own anger coloring his question.

  Dane pushed his fingers through his hair in frustration. "I don't know. I'm in between projects. I've got some time to decide before I make up my mind."

  "Then leave her alone," Thomas said. "She's just moved back to town and has her own life now. She's got her dad's ranch to deal with and her own business to run." He looked like he wanted to say more, but he pinched his lips closed at the last minute.

  "I can't leave her alone," Dane explained. "I can't physically do it. I've thought of her for ten fucking years. I've loved her for ten years. And her being here now…when I thought I'd never see her again. I just can't ignore it. She's the only woman I've ever really wanted."

  "Then you'd better be prepared to grovel, because she doesn't strike me as someone who could forgive and forget so easily," Cooper said. "You broke her heart. You're going to have to fix it. And there are some things you're going to have to accept about her. Like I said, ten years is a long time. And you have to be prepared to let it go if she tells you no."

  Dane was just about to ask Coop what the hell he was talking about when the game room door opened and Jana Metcalfe came through, balancing a pitcher of beer and glasses on a tray in one hand and a couple of baskets of fries in the other. She was plumper than she used to be and her hair was blonder, but her smile was genuine and Dane and Riley went to help her with her load.

  "Give me a hug, Dane MacKenzie," she said, laughing.

  He pulled her into an embrace and patted her on the shoulder. She'd always been like a kid sister. The MacKenzie brothers had palled around with Jana's oldest brother, and more often than not, she'd wanted to trail behind them.

  "How are you?” Dane asked. “You're looking good." He meant it. She looked—happy.

  She rolled her eyes and passed out their drinks. "It's nice of you to lie. I'm busy as ever."

  "Jana is married to Mike Marshall now and they have a little boy that's a pistol," Cooper said, reminding him with a smirk how much he'd missed over the last years.

  "Mike's doing kid duty tonight while I'm working," Jana said, oblivious to the undercurrents of anger in the room. "We're having a sleepover, but for all I know, I'll go home to find Mike tied to his recliner. Nine-year old boys are a menace to society."

  "Ain't that the truth," Thomas said, giving her a wink and taking a sip of his beer.

  She threw her head back and laughed. “I tell you, I don’t know how your mama did it with all four of you. Sometimes I think I’m going to pull my hair out, and I just have one.”

  "How is Ben?” Cooper asked. “Is he ready for school to start?"

  "Hell, no. He's already told me he's decided to homeschool this year." She rolled her eyes again and propped a hip against the table. "Can you imagine that? I told him if he stayed home with me in the daytime I'd make him watch soap operas and help with the laundry, so he changed his mind about that pretty quick."

  "Don't forget he's due for shots this year," Thomas reminded her. "Make sure you get an appointment early. Things get busy before school starts. In fact, you might remind the other parents when they come to get their kids tomorrow. What other fugitives are you harboring?"

  "Stop peddling for business," Coop said, and turned to Dane. "A lot of the older folks in town refuse to call Thomas their doctor because they remember what he was like as a kid. Mr. Scranton said there was no way in hell he was going to drop his pants and let Thomas stick a needle in him after the thrashing he gave him for letting his cows out of the pasture."

  "Who could blame him?" Jana asked, laughing. "You boys were a menace. And my boy and his gang are just like you, God help them all. You remember Jenny Mosely, Dane? She's got a boy name Tucker that can talk the paint off the wall. I shudder to think what he's doing to my house right now."

  She giggled again and said, "And of course you remember Charlie. Didn't you guys date for awhile before you left? Anyway, her Jayden is the mastermind of the group. That kid has more ideas than he knows what to do with. And every one of them always ends with him in a heap of trouble."

  His brothers started coughing and talking over each other, but all he could hear was the rush of blood pounding in his head. He leaned forward and pressed his hands against the table—hard—so the pain could remind him he was still alive. Charlie had a child. A nine-year-old child. He did the math in his head, and his legs gave out from under him. He sat down hard in the chair he'd abandoned earlier.

  "Honey, are you okay?" Jana asked. "You're white as a sheet."

  "I think he's just tired, Jana," Coop said. "He came straight here from the airport, and I'm sure he's worn out. Maybe if you could just get our check for us? We should probably take him home."

  "Sure thing, Coop. Be right back." Jana scurried out of the room and his brothers ranged their bodies in a semi-circle around him, looks of concern varying their expressions.

  "Did you know?" Dane rasped out.

  "We knew she had a kid," Riley said softly.

  Red clouded his vision and he charged at his brother before he could stop himself. He and Riley went down in a heap across the table and the wood snapped beneath them. His knuckles stung as they met his brother's jaw, and he winced as Riley got his own licks in against his ribs.

  "Dammit, Dane. Control yourself," Coop yelled as he grabbed him around the shoulders to try and contain him. It would take more than Cooper to subdue his anger. The rage had been building in Dane for too long. Thomas held him from the other side, and together Coop and Thomas were able to pull him away from Riley.

  Riley pushed himself from the floor and faced Dane. "What the hell is wrong with you, Dane? Why should you care if she has a kid? Would you really begrudge her for having a life after you
left?"

  "You should have fucking told me," Dane said, pushing against the bonds of his brothers' arms. "She has a nine-year-old kid you moron. Do the math."

  Riley paled before his eyes, and Thomas and Cooper were so surprised by the declaration they dropped their hold on him. He crashed back into Riley, but instead of going down, Riley wrapped his arms around him in a tight embrace.

  "Shit, Dane. We didn't know. None of us knew. I never even got a good look at the kid or knew how old he was. We would have told you. I swear."

  Dane broke out of his brother's hold and backed away, keeping his head down so they couldn't see the emotions crossing his face. He couldn't talk to his brothers right now. He had to find Charlotte.

  "I need keys," he said and held out his hand.

  Coop stepped forward. "I don't know if that's such a good idea right now, Dane. Why don't you think things through a bit and calm down before you go talk to Charlie?"

  A pair of keys landed in his hand, and he looked up into Riley's battered face. "Don't do anything stupid. And don't wreck my car."

  "Dammit, Riley," Coop said, but Dane didn't wait around to hear the argument. He was already out the door.

  Charlie owed him a hell of an explanation.

  Chapter 5

  Charlie had been lying in bed, wide awake, for more than an hour. She could still feel Dane's touch, and her body heated with the memory of his kiss. She tossed the covers off, the cotton too heavy on her sensitive skin.

  The fan whirred slowly overhead and her nipples puckered against her thin nightgown she wore. She closed her eyes and memories of Dane invaded her mind, as if he were right there with her. The first time they'd made love he'd been so gentle, so loving. He'd cherished every inch of her body, readying her for the invasion that would take her innocence. She'd barely felt a twinge as he'd buried himself deep inside her—she'd been too lost in the sensation of him.