Redneck Romeo (Rough Riders 15)

So when Dalton had fled the ceremony, Rory had been relieved. He was intuitive enough to know the marriage wouldn’t work, wouldn’t last, and he’d done the right thing in stopping it before it started. Maybe he could’ve come to that determination before he was literally ready to say I do but she’d secretly given him props for doing the right thing for once in his life.

After several of Addie’s relatives bragged to her that they’d dished out the beating Dalton deserved, and no one had seen the man since—she’d gone looking for him.

Maybe it was luck, maybe it was karma, maybe it was fate that Rory had found Dalton in the wooded area by the creek where they’d played as kids.

Dalton had been shocked to see her. The way he’d cringed against the rock, he’d expected to feel her wrath too.

In that moment, the June day became so clear she could feel the cool breeze flowing from the river. She could smell the dank, half-decayed leaves on the sun-warmed dirt. She could see the dappled light streaming through the treetops.

She remembered the bruises, cuts and swelling on Dalton McKay’s face.

He’d looked at her and sighed. “I’m hoping you’re unarmed.”

“I am. Although I’ll point out I could make a killing selling your location to the rest of Addie’s relatives who haven’t taken a shot at you.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a contest. I’d lie down like the dog I am and let them kick the crap outta me.”

Rory sat next to him on the rock and tilted her face toward the cloudless, vibrant blue sky.

Neither said anything for a while.

Dalton spoke first. “How’d you find me?”

Instinct. “I figured since no one could find you it was worth checking here.”

His gaze turned suspicious. “Has my family been lookin’ for me?”

“Yes.” Rory’s eyes took in every bruise, scrape and bump on his face. “I assume everyone you’ve run across has been hard on you.”

Dalton rubbed the bruise on his jaw. “A couple of Addie’s cousins caught me outside the convenience store in Moorcroft. Mean little f**kers.”

“They responsible for the shiner?”

“Nope. Two of her uncles and her aunt cornered me in Hulett. Got a knot on the side of my head where the woman hit me with a marble cheeseboard. Guess she decided not to take back the wedding gift she’d bought us and repurposed it as a weapon instead.”

“That’s not even funny.”

Dalton sighed. “No, it’s not. Especially not when I consider the worst beating came from Truman. Guess Addie’s tears turned him into a superhero revenge seeker for jilted brides. The ass**le popped me in the mouth hard enough to loosen a tooth, kicked me in the ribs and punched me in the f**king kidney. I pissed blood for two goddamned days. Thing of it is…I deserved it.”

Silence settled between them again.

Now when she finally had the chance to ask him the question that’d kept her up at night for months, her lips seemed glued shut.

“Come on, Rory. I know you’ve got something to say to me.”

“Why?” she asked him quietly.

“Why what? Why did I walk away from her?”

“No. Why did you ask her to marry you in the first place?”

He picked up a rock and chucked it into the water. “Wasn’t that what I was supposed to do? Time to settle down, they said. Time to grow up, they said. So half of my family was lookin’ at me like I was a defective human because no woman would stay with me longer than a couple of weeks. The other half of my family was lookin’ at my single status as an affront to their family values. Like I was clinging too hard to the wild McKay reputations they’d built over the years. Since they were all done with it, I should be too. Bear in mind many of them didn’t get married and settle down until they were well into their thirties.”

“Were either of the McKay camps right?”

Dalton shrugged. “No. I’m not…some smooth operator like most of them.” He shot her a sheepish look. “As you know firsthand. After Tell and Georgia got together, I was the odd man out everywhere. Spending time alone…never really been my thing. I always had my brothers or my cousins around. And without sounding like this is a f**king pity party, I may as well have been a ghost. So I spent a lot of time on the road, learning to be by myself, doin’ what I wanted to do. Then last summer after you went to South America, Addie and I ended up shooting pool at the Golden Boot. Shocked the shit outta me that she didn’t hate me.”

“Why? Addie doesn’t hate anyone.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “I assumed you’d told her about us?”

Rory shook her head.

“I never mentioned those, ah, incidents either when she and I started hanging out. She’s a sweet woman, nice to the core, everyone in town loves her and after three months of dating, she told me that she loved me.”

Rory clenched her jaw to keep it shut.

“You know what’s pathetic? I was so desperate at that point in my life for someone to profess their love for me that I proposed to her. She said yes and I figured we’d make a good life together.”

“Did you ever love her?”

“Thought I did, until…”

“Until what?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Picked up another rock and threw it.

Pushing was her way, but this time, she didn’t push. Part of her was afraid to hear him voice her suspicions out loud.

“So we set the wedding date. Everyone was happy.”

Were you happy?

“Addie focused her worries on the flavor of the cake and the color and monogramming on the napkins. I kept a lid on my worries. I convinced myself it was nerves. All men get screwed up thinkin’ about becoming a husband, and a provider, and only bein’ with one woman for the rest of his life.”

“You didn’t talk to your brothers, your cousins, your friends—anybody—about this since they’d gone through it?”

“No.” Then he went quiet.

“That’s it? That’s all I get about how you decided to leave my best friend standing alone in front of a church full of people?”

“I can’t…”

“You can’t? You won’t is more like it,” she spat.

“You wanna know why? I’ll tell you. But you answer this first. How did you react when you found out Addie and I were getting married?”