The Fall of Shane MacKade (The MacKade Brothers 4)

When he didn’t answer, she braced herself, spoke calmly. “I suppose I’ll have to ask. It’s important to me to be here in the morning. I can’t give you clear, rational data on why, only my feelings. I’d appreciate it very much if you’d let me stay, at least another day.”

“No one’s asked you to go, have they?” He snapped the words out, furious with himself now. Why should he panic at the thought of her packing up? There had never been any promises. He didn’t make them, didn’t want them. “You want to stay, stay—but leave me out of it. I’ve got some work to finish up, then I’m going out.”

“All right.”

He wanted desperately for her to ask him where, and would have snapped her head off if she questioned him. Of course, she didn’t, so he couldn’t. All he could do was walk out, when all he wanted to do was stay.

Chapter 12

He thought about getting drunk. It wasn’t a problem-solver, but it did have its points. It was a shame he wasn’t in the mood for it. Arguing with someone was a better idea, and since Rebecca wasn’t going to accommodate him, he headed for town, and Devin.

He’d always been able to count on Devin for a good fight.

Shane figured it was a bonus when he found not only Devin in the sheriff’s office, but Rafe, too.

“Hey, we were just talking about getting together a poker game.” Rafe greeted him with a slap on the shoulder. “Got any money?”

“Got a beer around here?”

“This is a place of law and order,” Devin said solemnly, then jerked his head toward the back room. “Couple in the cooler. You up for a game?”

“Maybe.” Shane stalked into the back room. “I can do what I want when I want, can’t I? I don’t have to check with a woman, like you guys do.”

Devin and Rafe exchanged looks. “I’ll give Jared a call,” Rafe said, picking up the phone as Shane came back in guzzling beer.

While Rafe dialed the phone and murmured into it, Devin propped his feet on his desk. “So, what’s Rebecca up to?”

“She doesn’t have to check with me, either.”

“Ah, had a little spat, did you?” Enjoying the idea, Devin crossed his arms behind his head. “She kick you out?”

“It’s my damn house,” Shane shot back. “And Reasonable Rebecca doesn’t spat. She changes,” he went on, gesturing with the beer. “Right in front of your eyes. One minute she’s tough and smart and cocky. The next she’s soft and lost and so sweet you’d kill anybody who’d try to hurt her. Then she’s cool— Oh, she’s so cool, and controlled, and—” He gulped down beer. “Analytical. How the hell are you supposed to keep up?”

“Well,” Devin mused, “you can’t call her boring.”

“Anything but. She thinks she is, at least some of the time. Hell, I don’t know what she thinks she is.” Shane brooded into the bottle. “Just today, she comes across Frannie kissing me. Does she get mad, does she start a fight, accuse me of anything? No. Not that it wasn’t perfectly innocent, but the point is that if you’re sleeping with somebody you shouldn’t like the idea of them kissing somebody else. Right?”

Rafe had hung up the phone and was watching his brother carefully. “I’d agree with that. You agree with that, Dev?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Pleased with the unity of spirit, Shane lifted the bottle again. “There you go. But Dr. Knight, she’s as cool as you please. Studying me like I’m a smear on a lab slide again. I hate when she does that.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Rafe said, and sat down to enjoy himself.

Soothed by brotherly understanding, Shane finished off the first beer, then popped open the second. “And another thing—how come she doesn’t ask where all this is leading? Tell me that. Women are always asking where all this is leading. That’s how you keep things from getting too intense, by setting down the cards, you know.”

“Is that how?” Devin smiled serenely.

“Sure. But she doesn’t ask.” He chugged down beer. That was why things had gotten so intense. He needed to believe that. “And you’d think she’d get in the way, wouldn’t you? You’d think she’d get in the damn way, living there, but she just sort of fits.”

“Does she?” Devin grinned and winked at Rafe.

“Sort of. I mean, there she is at breakfast in the morning, and she’s always got something to talk about. She works in the kitchen most of the time, but she never gets in the way, and you start expecting her to be there.”

Rafe looked around as the door opened and Jared walked in with a large brown bag. Jared set it on Devin’s desk and took out a six-pack. “We playing here?”

“Maybe later.” To keep the interruption at a minimum, Devin gestured Jared to a chair. “Shane’s on a roll.”