Wyoming Cowboy Ranger. Nicole Helm
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had enough trouble lately,” Ty said, and she hated that she could see the stiffness in his posture. Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed the change, but she knew him too well even all these years later to miss that slight tightening in the way he held himself. “If there’s going to be more, I want to head it off at the pass. You run the most visited place in Bent. All I’m asking is for you to—”
“Yes, I understand what you’re asking,” she replied primly. “Consider it done. Now, feel free to leave.” Because she hated him here. Hated breathing the same air as him. Hated looking into those blue eyes she knew too well, because his build could change, the skin around his eyes could crinkle with the years, but the sharp blue of tropical ocean would always be the exact same.
And it would always hurt, no matter how much she tried to exorcise that pain.
He rapped his knuckles against her counter lightly, his lips curved into something like a wry smile. “See you around, Jen.”
Not if I can help it.
* * *
TY COULDN’T EXPLAIN the feeling that needled along his spine. It had nothing to do with the heavy weight that settled in his stomach. The needling was his gut feeling, honed as an army ranger, that told him the strange, threatening letters he’d been receiving weren’t a prank or a joke.
The hard ball of weight was all Jen. Regrets. Guilt. Things he’d never, ever expected to feel, but adulthood had changed him. The army and army rangers had changed him. All the regrets he swore to himself at eighteen to never, ever entertain swamped him every time he saw her.
He tried not to see her, but his family was making it even harder than this small town.
All that was emotional crap he could at least pretend to ignore or will away. Which was exactly what he could not do with the latest letter that had been mixed in with the other mail to Rightful Claim, the bar his cousin owned and where Ty worked.
Vague. Ominous. Unsigned. And addressed to him. He had his share of enemies in Bent. Being a Carson in this town lent itself toward Delaney enemies everywhere he went. But though he’d love to pin it on a Delaney or a crony of theirs, it wasn’t.
This was something outside, which meant it likely connected to his time in the army. Yeah, he’d made a few enemies there, too. He wasn’t a guy who went looking for trouble. In fact, he could get along with just about anyone.
Until he couldn’t.
He blew out a breath as he crossed Main. Away from the prim and tidy Delaney side of the street, to the right side. The rough-and-tumble Carson side with Rightful Claim at the end—with its bright neon signs and assurance that nothing in this town would ever be truly civilized like the Delaneys over there wanted.
Except the lines weren’t so clear anymore, were they?
Dylan Delaney was standing in the garage opening to Carson Cars & Bikes. Vanessa and her swell of a baby bump stood next to him, grinning happily up at the man she used to hate.
What was wrong with his cousins? He could give a pass to his brother. Noah’s wife was barely a Delaney. Oh, somewhere along the line, but Addie hadn’t grown up here. Dylan and Laurel? Born and bred rule-abiding proper Delaney citizens, and somehow Vanessa and Grady were head over heels in dumb.
Ty should know, shouldn’t he? He’d been there first. He’d just had the good sense to get the hell out of that mess while he could.
But that only conjured images of Jen, who hadn’t had the decency to change in his near decade away. Once upon a time he’d been stupid enough to count the freckles on her nose and commit that number to memory.
It wasn’t the first time he wished he could medically remove the part of his brain still so in tune to that long past time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
He didn’t nod or greet Dylan as he passed and felt only moderately guilty for being rude. Until Vanessa’s voice cut through the air.
“Hey, jerkoff.”
He heaved out a sigh and slowly turned to face her. Her baby bump was so incongruous to the sharp rest of her. “Yes, Mrs. Delaney,” he replied.
She didn’t even flinch, just slid her arm around Dylan’s waist. As though a Carson and a Delaney—opposites in every possible way—could be the kind of lifetime partners real marriages were made out of.
If he could erase four years of his adolescent life, it would have been funny. He would have had a heck of a time making fun of all of the fallen Carsons. But since he’d given all that up once upon a time, and no one had any clue, all this wedded bliss and the popping out of babies was hard to swallow.
“You coming to the baby shower?” Vanessa demanded. Marriage and pregnancy hadn’t softened her any. At least there was that.
“Do I look like the kind of man who goes to baby showers?”
“Oh, don’t be a wuss. It’s coed.”
“It’s co-no.”
“Noah’s coming.”
Hell.
“You’re way more of a baby shower guy than Noah.”
“I take offense to that.”
She grinned. “Good. I’ll count you down for a yes.”
“I don’t think—”
“Give him a break, Van,” Dylan said, his arm resting across her shoulders, as if just a few months ago they hadn’t hated each other’s guts. “It’s only because Jen’s going to be there.”
Ty stiffened, fixing Dylan with an icy look. “What’s Jen got to do with anything?”
Vanessa’s smile went sly, but she nodded agreeably to her husband’s words. “It’s no secret you two hate each other.” She enunciated the word hate as if it didn’t mean what it ought.
But it darn well had to. “I can’t stand the whole lot of you, but I’ve suffered through a few weddings now—a lot better than the two of you did on that first one,” he replied, nodding toward Vanessa’s expanding stomach.
Vanessa rubbed her belly. “That was fate.”
“That was alcohol. Now, I have things to do.”
“One o’clock tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
He grunted. He could disappear for the night, easily enough. Even his brother wouldn’t be able to find him. But Noah would be disappointed if he baled. Worse, Noah’s wife, Addie, would be disappointed in him. She’d give him that wounded deer look.
Damn Delaney females.
Ty stalked down the street, edgy and snarling and with nothing to take it out on. He pushed into Rightful Claim knowing he had to rein in his temper lest Grady poke at it. Though Grady owned Rightful Claim, Ty lived above it and worked most nights as a bartender.
He’d been toying around with the idea of convincing Grady to let him buy in as partner. He just wasn’t 100 percent sure he wanted to be home for good. He was done with the army rangers, that much was for sure, but that didn’t mean he was ready to water the roots that tied him to Bent.
Didn’t mean he wasn’t. The problem was he wasn’t sure. Until he was, he was going to focus on taking it one day at a time.
Grady looked up from his place behind the bar where he was filling the cash register to get it ready for the three o’clock opening. “You got a letter in the mail,” Grady offered lightly, nodding toward a pile of envelopes and glossy postcards. “No postage. Odd.”
Ty shrugged and snatched up the letter with his name on it. “Women never leave you secret admirer notes, Grady?”
“No, women used to leave me themselves,” Grady said with a sharp grin.
“Used