His head whipped around so fast it startled her, and even in the darkness she felt the intensity of his gaze drilling into her. “You and me,” he repeated. “Both of us together?” He sounded about as thrilled as she was.
“That’s the way it’s laid out in the will. Morgan will inherit everything when she turns eighteen. Until then, you and I are supposed to take care of her.”
“Well, now, how’s that supposed to work, seein’ as you don’t live anywhere around here and Morgan and I do?”
“I guess I’ll have to move,” she said, though she didn’t mean it. She just said it.
“Well, I guess you will.” He didn’t bother hiding the disdain in his voice. “Or more likely, I could petition the court to be her single guardian, and you can go off and hide again, pretend you don’t exist or whatever it is you’ve been doing for the past decade or so.”
Shiloh gritted her teeth. “I’m not abandoning her.”
“You don’t even know her, Shiloh.”
“But I will.”
“Don’t you have a life somewhere, maybe a husband or a kid or a job?”
“A job, yes.” Why was she even having this conversation? “Look, for now, I’m staying, that’s all.”
“For now,” he repeated knowingly. He pushed himself off the railing and stood over her, a good head taller than she was. One long arm stretched toward the entrance to the house, where the screen was shut but the heavy wooden door was ajar. “That girl in there has been through a lot. She’s lost a father and now a mother, and she’s only twelve, so what’s not gonna happen on my watch is that she gets attached to someone who has no intention of sticking around. No more abandonment. Not from you. Not from anyone.”
Her back teeth ground together, and though he was intimidating, Shiloh wasn’t about to back down from Larimer Tate’s son, not the way she’d run from the old man. “That goes double for you. Morgan seems to have some attachment to you, so I expect you to stick by her and help out.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
They paused a moment, staring at each other like boxers in their corners. Then he extended his hand and gripped hers for a quick shake, surprising her. In the awkward aftermath, she headed inside to check on Morgan and tried to shake off the nagging feeling that she’d just made a deal with the devil.
Chapter 5
Morgan had claimed the bedroom that had belonged to Shiloh when she’d lived here, so after Shiloh quietly checked on her sleeping sister, assured that Morgan was curled up atop the covers of the very same twin bed that had been Shiloh’s, she found a quilt in the closet and tucked it around the girl. Morgan, exhausted, barely moved. The girl’s face looked pale against the pillow case, her hair a riot of untamed curls falling across her cheeks.
Sleep tight, Shiloh thought but didn’t utter the words. Her throat was suddenly thick as she realized the girl was an orphan, as was Shiloh. Morgan was alone aside from Shiloh and Beau Tate.
All in all, it was going to be a difficult situation.
For all of them.
She turned to find Beau standing in the doorway. He was silently observing her, as if he couldn’t quite trust her. She couldn’t help but bristle and didn’t say a word as she passed by him and walked the few short steps from the hallway to the main living area, a space that hadn’t grown cozier, or cleaner, or more tended over the years. If anything, the living room, dining area, and kitchen seemed drearier than ever, the walls dingy, the furniture sagging, the lingering scents of bacon grease and Faye’s last cigarette still faintly noticeable.
Shiloh was reminded of her own childhood in this dreary, unhappy home, and her guts tightened. But Larimer, the brutal tyrant, was long gone, along with Faye, his dutiful if long-suffering wife, and now the house was empty—devoid of life, rough as it had been for Shiloh.
She heard Beau close Morgan’s bedroom door, the latch clicking before he walked into the living room.
“You’re staying here?” He pointed a finger at the floor to indicate the house.
“Of course.”
“Okay.”
“You thought maybe I was going to book a room at Prairie Creek’s answer to the Ritz?”
He snorted, as close to a laugh as he was going to come. “Maybe stay with a friend.”
“I don’t have any friends here,” she said, and in her mind’s eye she saw Katrina Starr as she had been: short, athletic, tough. A cop’s kid. And then there was Ruthie, with her pale, terrified China-doll face. They’d undoubtedly changed since then, were probably married and had kids, maybe moved away. Ruthie most likely went by Ruth now that she was all grown up. Who knew? Certainly not Shiloh. She hadn’t kept up with them. Or anyone. By design. That had been the plan, the oath she’d sworn, and she’d stuck to it, never once asking her mother about the other two girls, cutting them out of her life completely, never expecting to see either of them again.
Until now.
Because everything had changed.
“What about you?” she asked him.
“I’ve got a bunk over the garage.”
Shiloh remembered the old attic as a musty collection area for unwanted, broken-down furniture, picture frames, suitcases, and bags of clothes that had never made it to the thrift store. She’d had friends over, and they’d hung out there when she was a teen; she’d even stolen one of Tate’s whiskey bottles and, with Tommy Monroe, sampled her first searing swallow of Jim Beam when she’d been in the tenth grade. The place was uninhabitable, or had been the last she’d been up there. “You live here?” Oh no, that wouldn’t work. She couldn’t imagine waking up to Beau Tate or trying to sleep when he was nearby.
“No. I don’t live here. Or I didn’t.” His lips compressed. “I have my own place, but since Faye took ill a few months back, I’ve stayed here off and on.”
“Well, you can go home now,” she said emphatically.
“I’ll stay tonight.”
Man oh man, this wasn’t going how she’d planned. “So where do you really live?”
“Outside of town, not far from the Kincaid ranch. You know where that is?”
Of course she did. Anyone who grew up in the area knew about the two major spreads in the area. The Rocking D was owned by the Dillinger family, the other was the Kincaid place. “Yeah.”
“I work for the Kincaids. Blair and Hunter.”
“Not the Colonel . . . no, wait, I mean the Major?” she asked, referring to the Kincaid patriarch.
Beau gave a quick shake of his head. “Nope. He passed on a couple of years ago.”
“What about his wife?”
He grimaced. “I keep forgetting that you weren’t around. Georgina’s still alive, I think, but she’s not in Prairie Creek.” Shiloh waited for more, but he walked to the window, looked outside, as if thinking about how much he should share about the family that had hired him. “None of the Kincaids talk about it much, but rumor has it she’s in a private care facility somewhere in Colorado, I think. Denver, maybe.”
“Because . . . ,” she prodded, sensing there was more to the story.
He seemed reticent to gossip and shrugged. “I guess she lost it after her husband died, got herself into some kind of trouble, and ended up there.” He met her gaze. “I don’t pry.”