“He’s why you left,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s why I left.”
And the moment stretched between them. And Arizona King, the reason that he remembered this place so well of all the places he’d lived, of all the places he’d worked, had just confirmed the thing he had always wondered. If she thought about him the way that he thought about her.
He’d felt like an ass at the time. Because he’d had no right. No right to look at her like he had no right to want her like he had. He definitely hadn’t had the right to kiss her.
He hadn’t been a man then. But he’d been too old. And it was the combination of those things that’d made it absolutely impossible.
He had grown since then. Made a lot of mistakes, and done his best to atone for them.
And then there was Arizona, the mistake that he’d wanted to make. Hell, he’d wanted to make it so bad he’d ached with it.
But he hadn’t.
He’d only kissed her once, and never taken it further. But he’d dreamed of her.
He still did, if he were honest.
He took a step toward her, and she took a step away.
“Hey there, buddy,” she said. “I don’t need that kind of...anything. I’m not looking for it.”
“Sorry.”
“I just think that you should be easier on your kid.”
“And I get that. In general. But this is all kind of in service to being easier on my kid.”
“You want to make him leave? Is that it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
“Well, I guess that is better than having a conversation.”
“I don’t get your investment.”
“I don’t know,” she said, growing increasingly prickly. “I don’t know what my investment is either. You’re just some guy that I used to know, and not a particularly special one. But you did make that kid a promise. And trying to manipulate him? What’s that going to do for him?”
“I’m not trying to manipulate him into anything bad.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. How can you not understand that? The point is that you’re manipulating him. And that is kind of a shitty thing to do. Believe me. Gentry King, my father, is a master at that sort of thing. He just wants you to do what he wants. He’s not interested in knowing you, he’s not interested in what you care about. He’s the king, after all.”
“I remember that you had issues with your dad.”
She looked angry that he remembered that. “Yeah. He’s great to work for. He’s an asshole if he’s your dad.”
“I didn’t have a dad at all. I try to be there as much as I can and I try to guide him. I’m not trying to be a hard-ass, but a man has to walk the line.”
“Right. Well, I guess you aren’t my dad.”
“No,” he said, his voice hard. “I’m not.”
“Whatever. Just... You promised the kid this. And believe me when I tell you, if you want to have a good relationship with him, then maybe you should take that promise seriously.”
“I do take it seriously. And you know, I recognize that I’m going to have to deal with the custody issue again, now that my ex-wife let him drive across the country without ever checking in on him.”
“You married her?”
There was something on her face that looked hollow.
“I tried to do the right thing,” he said. “But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t marry her in part because I wanted to make sure I got a fair shake when it came to custody. I wanted to be an ex-husband. Not just the ex-boyfriend. It felt like it might carry more weight.”
“Right. Well, I don’t know anything about that. And you know, what do I know about kids? All I know is that I was a pretty miserable one.”
“Well, I hope you’re a less miserable adult.”
She laughed, and there was a bitter edge to it. “Depends on who you ask.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
ARIZONA STILL FELT breathless by the time Micah left the kitchen.
She was angry at him. And she had no call to be. He had never owed her anything, and now she had an explanation for why he had left all that time ago. She had no right to be mad. She had no right to have expected anything from him. He had gone back home to claim custody of his kid, and that was admirable. It was.
And yet... She still felt betrayed. That he had gone back to a life she hadn’t known he’d had. That he’d married somebody else.
As if you didn’t think he had.
It would’ve been different if she would’ve had a lover.
But not having a lover didn’t have anything to do with Micah Stone. It was all the things that had come after.
It was all the things tied up in him... And he had gone back to have a baby with someone else. If she’d known that, would she have cried for him the way that she had? Would she have driven quite so fast?
Would she have broken her leg in those places, and split her torso up the side? Would she have left herself with all those scars?
She didn’t know the answer to those questions.
Maybe she would’ve driven faster. Maybe it would’ve been worse.
Maybe she would just be dead.
And that would be a pretty piss-poor thing. To have died over some man who had never even slept with her.
She’d wanted him close, and now all she did was try to keep people away.
She was sick of herself.
Her family came in, loud and boisterous in the big cabin, and her brothers started to go through the fridge to get out the steaks that they’d taken out of the freezer earlier.
There was always beef to be had at the Kings’.
She’d said that she was a vegetarian for a while. She might as well have announced her plans to become a serial killer. It had not gone over well in her ranching family. As a result, she had stuck to her guns and avoided beef for two years.
Just to be in a fight about it.
It was Denver who’d said to her: Why are you cutting your nose off to spite your face? And it really was then that she’d realized she was being her dad, rather than being in a fight with him, and that felt like a silly thing.
So she had given up on the crusade. Because it had never been about her moral convictions, and had only ever been about making Gentry angry.
She’d thought perhaps the better part of valor was to eat prime rib.