Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

I t was a tough go getting up to his place, but once they were past the treeline, at least he'd been afforded some bit of shelter from the wind and snow. It took nearly an hour and when Dallas arrived at his home, he instructed Vivian to go into the house, while he headed for the barn. There'd been no conversation. No back-and-forth. He hadn't given her an opportunity for any of that, because with him and Vivian, things generally headed south when she wanted something that he didn't.

At that moment, he needed some space.

He'd left her on his porch and immersed himself in barn chores, welcoming the physical labor because it stopped him from thinking about things. In particular, why in hell he'd agreed to bring Vivian up here. So, he cleared his mind and worked, and, nearly two hours later, had nothing left to do. The animals had been fed, the stalls mucked, and new bedding laid down. They had fresh water, feed, and, though it was chilly, the animals would be fine. With one last glance around the barn, Dallas closed up. With his head bent against the wind, he trudged through waist-high drifts until he reached the house.

It was early afternoon, but the gray sky wasn't letting much light through. Smoke rose from the chimney. He was surprised to see the entire porch had been cleared of snow. He considered walking around to the mudroom door, but the snow was too deep. As it was Dallas was able to shake most of it from his clothes and boots, before stepping inside the warmth of the house.

He smelled chili and spied a large pot on the stove. His stomach rumbled as he shrugged out of his gear, then headed for the mudroom to hang up his pants and coat. When he walked in, Dallas was immediately assaulted by five kittens, while the mother watched him lazily from her bed in the corner. The smallest, his favorite, was nowhere to be seen.

"Ringo," he called softly, looking in the closet. He called once more, but the kitten didn't appear, and he figured the little fur ball had hidden himself away behind the washer or dryer. Dallas made sure the mother's food bowl was full and noticed her water had been topped up.

He closed the door and turned around, and that's when he spied Vivian curled up in the oversized chair by the fireplace. She was asleep, wrapped in one of his mother's old blankets, and there, tucked up underneath her chin, was Ringo. Poking out from the other side was Lily, who stared back at him with one eye open.

It was weird seeing her in his place. Dallas watched her for a few moments, then headed upstairs for a shower. The hot water felt good. It wasn't until he was underneath the spray that he realized just how tense he was. After he cleaned his body, he rolled his shoulders and neck and leaned against the tiled wall, enjoying the hot spray.

He was in the shower so long the water began to cool, and with a sigh he stepped out and dried off. He pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of track pants, then headed downstairs. Vivian was still asleep, so he made himself a coffee. With nothing to do but listen to the storm rattle the windows, he settled in across from her and sipped the warm brew. A frown marred her forehead, and he wondered what it was she was dreaming about. Then he berated himself, because trying to figure out the inner workings of Vivian Bridgestone's mind was like trying to figure out a Rubik's Cube. Damn near impossible.

He'd just set down his empty mug on the table beside his chair when Ringo's little head rose, and the kitten spied him. The kitten stretched lazily, gave Vivian's chin a quick lick, and then began the perilous journey down her body so that he could get to Dallas. The animal paused when he got to the edge of the sofa, eyeing the distance to the ground with a swishing tail and a plaintive cry.

Dallas was about to rescue him, but Ringo half fell, half jumped down, and ran to him, his claws digging into his cotton pants as he pulled himself up to triumphantly sit on Dallas's lap. The kitten was tenacious. He chuckled, picking him up to give him a quick scratch behind the ears.

"He's sweet."

Dallas glanced over to Vivian, who now sat up and watched him and Ringo. Her eyes were still sleep-heavy, her hair a tangled mess, and her skin glowed.

God, she was beautiful. No way around it.

"He's something, all right," Dallas replied.

"Are you going to keep him?"

"Probably not. I'm sure I'll be able to find him a home."

"He obviously likes you and wants to stay," she said with a small smile.

"Liking doesn't always mean that staying is a good idea."

Her eyes widened at that, and she looked away, eventually getting to her feet and walking over to the window.

"It's still bad out there."

"It is." He set down the kitten, who protested loudly, and then got up. He was restless and felt off. "You made chili."

"I made chili."

Dallas eyed her closely. "What are we doing here?"

If she was surprised at his direct question, Vivian didn't show it. She gave a small shrug. "I don't know."

"Playing house is moving past no-strings."

"Is that what we're doing?" she asked softly, moving toward him. "Playing house?"

"You made the chili."

She nodded. "I did." Her tongue darted out to swipe at the corner of her mouth. "We have to eat, don't we?"

"Yeah," he replied, voice low. "We have to eat."

"It's why I made the chili."

"When did you learn to cook?" he asked, noting this was the question that surprised her. Best he could remember, she could barely boil an egg.

"I've been on my own since I was seventeen, Dal. I had to learn to survive and cultivate new skills." Her chin jutted up a bit. "One of those skills was making a mean chili." Her voice softened. "It reminded me of home."

The two of them stared at each other for a good long while, so long that Ringo was able to jump off the chair and claw his way up Dallas's leg and torso. This space between them was full of things left unsaid, but Dallas wasn't in the mood to explore any of that. Not yet.

"Let's eat," he said, turning toward the kitchen. He grabbed some bowls from the cupboard and the large ladle from the drawer, while Vivian slid onto a chair at the island. Dallas filled their bowls and then sat down beside her. "Smells good," he said.

"Thank you. Luckily, you had most of the things I needed."

"Yeah?" He side-eyed her. "What are we missing?"

She swallowed. He couldn't help but follow the delicate lines of her neck and shrugged, twirling her spoon in the bowl. "Chickpeas, baked brown beans, romano beans, and red kidney beans."

"That's not chili."

"Oh, it is, my friend." She flashed a smile. "The best kind you'll ever eat."

They finished their meal in silence, and for that, Dallas was grateful. He wasn't in the mood to talk or be social. Maybe he'd been living alone too long.

He took their empty bowls over to the sink and rinsed them. "That was good, thanks." He could be a polite asshole.

"Sounds like the storm might be letting up." She stood beside him, so close he could smell her. His nostrils flared, and he cleared his throat, moving away to give him some space. The woman was dangerous. Always had been.

"What happened to Gunner?" she asked softly.

"I had him put to sleep a few years back. Bad hips, and he had some tumors that were cancerous."

"I'm sorry."

He looked at Vivian. "He was a good dog."

She nodded. "I never meant to?—"

"We don't need to do this, Viv." He walked past her and stood in the middle of his living room, body and mind heated with a bunch of pent-up shit that needed to be controlled. This was not the time to let it out.

"I want to talk about things."

"I don't," he bit out, turning to her as that anger in his gut churned. "No good can come of it."

"Have you ever let anyone in?" she asked, eyes so big, they could have held up the moon.

"I let you in once, and that didn't exactly end well."

She moistened her lips. "There's been no one since me? No woman in your bed?"

His eyebrow shot up at that, and she made a sound, shaking her head. "I know you've had your fun, and obviously, there have been a lot of women."

"Not a lot."

"I find that hard to believe."

"I've never been the guy who needs a lot of variety. I like to keep things simple. Too many women means too many complications."

"But you've never been in a relationship since…us."

"We were too young to know what a relationship was. All we did was argue and have sex." He skipped a beat. "Great mind-blowing sex. But being physical is all we've got."

She glanced away and whispered. "I guess I remember things differently."

He heard the hurt in her voice, and damned if it didn't make him feel like shit. "Hey," he said quietly. "Why are we rehashing all that stuff? Let's just go with whatever this is for as long as it works, and then…"

"Then what?"

"We're not endgame here. We never were. You're not going to stay in Montana, not when you have a life in Alaska that allows you to live without all these messy ties to your past."

Her nostrils flared, and he knew she was angry. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Dallas had no problem being brutally honest. "You run when shit goes down. You don't deal with anything, you disappear and hide. You deflect. You blame. You did it before, and you'll do it again."

"That's not fair," she retorted.

"It might not be fair, but it's damn well true."

Her eyes widened even more, and she sputtered, turning away from him and crossing the room so that there was distance. Typical.

"There are things you don't—" She cut herself off and lowered her eyes. "Things I can't…" Dallas got the feeling she was wrestling with something big. He took a step forward.

"Just spit it out. Whatever it is that's hanging over you. Get it off your chest, and maybe you'll be free."

She glanced up, making no effort to hide the tears that sat there. They shimmered and made her eyes look like glass.

"Back then, why did you think I left?"

Dallas sighed and ran a hand over his beard, not taking his eyes off her. "All we did was fight, and that last one was ugly.

"I remember." She replied so softly, he barely heard it.

"You were mad that I'd gone to town with Benton." She'd shown up at the Sundowner and created the kind of scene that folks had talked about for years. "I was too young to deal with it, and I said some things."

"You did." The tears were now falling freely. "You called me a spoiled child. Told me we were done and that I'd embarrassed myself."

"Viv, I?—"

"You called me crazy. Told me I sucked all the oxygen out of the room when we were together." Her brow furrowed. "You said I was too intense and that you needed some space. Then you walked over to Megan Caruthers and pulled her onto the dance floor. You shoved your tongue down her throat while I watched."

Shame spread heat across his face, and, uncomfortable facing his past behavior, Dallas could do nothing but watch her now.

"I knew if I stayed, I would scratch her eyes out or do something worse, something so bad, you would never talk to me again. I know it's no excuse, but you have to remember I was so young. I wasn't thinking straight. I was an emotional seventeen-year-old girl in love with a boy she thought was slipping through her fingers. A boy who, at that time in her life, was the only good thing she had."

"We were both young and dumb, but you left the next day without a word, and I never saw you again. Not for years." His voice was hard now, because those were facts. "I guess I figured you thought you were better off somewhere away from your old man and that wherever you landed, it was better than what I could have given you."

Vivian swiped at the tears on her face and then squared her shoulders. Time did that wonky thing just then. It slowed down, and the rest of the room faded to nothing but gray noise, while everything about her sharpened and intensified. His gut rolled over, and he found himself clenching his fists as if preparing for a fight.

"I left because I had no choice. Dad kicked me out."

"What?" Surprise all but took his voice away. He cleared his throat, confused but unable to say anything else.

Vivian looked him square in the eye. "He found out I was pregnant, and when I refused to tell him who the father was, he called me a whore and said a bunch of other stuff that I still have a hard time thinking about. Said he'd kill whoever I'd been with if he found out. Then he told me I didn't have a home anymore, and I left."

Silence. The big kind. The kind that presses in and makes a man feel small. It washed over him, and for a long time, he couldn't form a thought, let alone a sentence. Pregnant?

"Viv," was all he got out before she turned away from him.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You drop a bomb like that, and you don't want to talk about it?"

"I can't right now." She sounded anguished, but he didn't care.

She shut down and cut him out, which was what she always did. And that burn in his gut, the one that had him trembling with anger and remorse and shock and a bunch of crap he had no name for, had him heading for the mudroom.

"Un-fucking-believable."

He had to think. Had to get away from her.

Dallas trudged through the snow and spent the night in the barn with his animals, stretched out across two bales of hale until nearly dawn. He must have fallen asleep at some point, a damn miracle considering his mind was going a mile a minute. And when he rolled off the hay, the storm was over. By the time he got everyone fed and watered, it was light out.

With nothing left to do but face his past, he took one last look around the barn. Chest tight and still in a black mood, he headed for the house. But it was empty. She was gone. Vivian must have taken the Ski-Doo from the shed and left.

Dallas swore as he stomped across the room, not caring that he still wore his boots. He spied a piece of paper on the kitchen counter.

I'm sorry for everything. Please give me some time.

I'll be in touch when I can.

V

Teeth clenched so tight his jaw hurt, Dallas sat down at the kitchen counter. There were questions he needed to ask. Answers he needed to hear. What the hell? A baby? What happened to the child? His child .

But if time had taught him one thing, it was that he needed to cool down and clear his head before he did any asking. Because if he didn't, he'd say the wrong thing, and he'd already hurt her too much.

Dallas needed to abide by Vivian's wishes. He'd give her a couple of days. He'd do that for her because he owed her. As he'd spent the night on that bed of hay the night before, he couldn't get rid of the image of Vivian so young and hurt and alone. How in hell had he not known?

Why had he not gone after her all those years ago? He could blame it on his age, the fact that he was barely a man himself. Or he could face the truth. A part of him had been relieved because being with Vivian was hard work. She liked to start shit and wasn't afraid to hit back when he was an asshole. He hadn't been equipped to deal with her and figured she'd come back in a week or so.

But that week had turned into a month. And then more months had passed. Her family was close-lipped, and even Benton didn't know much about his sister's whereabouts. Pretty soon, the only thing he'd wanted, the one woman who filled up the spaces inside him, was gone, and she never came back. It was easy to be angry and let her take the fall. To believe she'd left him without so much as a word or goodbye.

He'd been an idiot.

Head hung, he stared at the note until her words blurred. Until that anger in him faded and he was left with nothing but a whole lot of emptiness. Until he was left with one conclusion. He'd failed her. Her father had failed her.

And it was up to them to make it right.