Wicked Need (The Wicked Horse Series Book 3)(53)

Because if I’m cutting out the poisonous past and refusing to be owned anymore, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my mom maintain any type of hold on me. At the most, I might give her a tiny bit of money once the estate gets settled, but then I’m done with her.

“I don’t believe it,” Trish says, scoffing. “He wouldn’t.”

“Well, he did,” I snap.

“I’m coming over. We can talk about this,” my mom says in a brusque voice.

“I’m not in Vegas.”

Small pause. Can hear the wheels turning. “Where are you?” she asks.

“Look… I’m at work and can’t talk,” I say, ignoring her question. She doesn’t deserve to know where I am.

“But what am I supposed—?”

“Take care of yourself,” I say softly and disconnect the phone.

Is that the last I’ll hear of Trish Lyons?

Nope. There’ll be another day, another dollar asked for.

The one good thing about not having a pot to piss in right now is that it makes my conversations with my mom a lot shorter.





Chapter 19


Rand



I note Cat dressed a lot differently for work today as she walks into the Snake River Brewery to meet me for dinner in a pair of dark jeans and a form-fitted plaid shirt with expensive leather boots that come up over her knees.

Yesterday, she was all polished sophistication when she left. She came back to the apartment tired, sweaty, and with dirt smudges all over her dress. Over frozen pizza because neither one of us wanted to cook, she told me about her day, which apparently included unloading and sorting dirty boxes filled with old campaign stuff, Sloane telling Cat all about our encounter together, as well as a call from her loser mother. It was a full day for her.

Cat didn’t seem bent out of shape that I have carnal knowledge of Sloane, but I expect that’s because Cat has carnal knowledge of Sloane’s man, Cain. Ordinary people would never understand the dynamics of this type of sexual freedom, but hell… sometimes it seems a little weird to me as well.

But no more weird I suppose than the fact that I seem to fall more for Cat each day… hell, each moment we’re together… and I can’t seem to figure out if these feelings are real or fanned perhaps brighter by an unexpressed desire to be a hero to her.

She walks toward me, hips swaying, and every man in the bar turns his head to look at her. Her eyes are only for me as I stand up from my stool to greet her. Cat steps into me, her hands to my waist and she goes to tiptoes to press her lips to the lower side of my jaw. “Hey,” she says softly.

“Good day at work, honey?” I ask playfully as I drop my hand to her ass and cop a quick feel.

She laughs and steps past me, plopping down on the stool I had been saving for her. I take my seat beside her, and she takes a grateful swig of the Snake River Pale Ale I’d had poured for her by the bartender when I’d arrived about fifteen minutes ago. I call out to one of the bartenders who has his back to me, counting money from the cash drawer. “Ryan… go ahead and put in a barbeque chicken quesadilla and a bison burger.”

He looks over his head and says, “Sure thing, Rand.”

“How’d you know I wanted a burger?” Cat asks. She knows I ordered the burger for her since I know she doesn’t like chicken, which is strange because I thought everyone likes chicken. Still, it’s a unique fact about her that’s hard to forget.

“Lucky guess,” I say with a smirk. “So seriously… how was your second day of work?”

“More of the same unpacking boxes, but Callie was there today and she started educating me on what the process will be like over the next year.”

“Sounds fun,” I say with trademark snark.

She smiles, but the light doesn’t last long before her eyes turn serious. “Did he ever show?”

She’s talking about Kevin who had agreed to deliver the purported current and signed estate paperwork of Samuel Vaughn. I expected him or someone on his behalf to come to Westward Ink today and hand it off.

Well, that’s not true. I actually expected him not to bring it but at the least figured he’d call Cat with some bullshit excuse. Instead, there wasn’t a peep from him all day.

Cat knows this because she texted me about every hour for an update.

Did he show?

Do you have it?

Where do you think he is?

He’s not going to show, right?

I shake my head in the negative to her original question. “I ran by the apartment right after work to see if perhaps someone left it in my mailbox. No one ever came by the shop.”

“Fuck, he’s an *,” she mutters as she reaches for her beer. “Should have known he wouldn’t follow through. My credit cards didn’t get turned on either.”

“It’s not because he’s an *, Cat,” I tell her, and she turns to blink at me in surprise. “It’s because he doesn’t have it. It doesn’t exist.”

“You think?”

“I more than think,” I say confidently.

I’d been thinking about it all day. If she was truly cut out of the will, there was no reason to keep a signed copy from her. Kevin Vaughn was bluffing to cut her out of his life with minimum fuss, and he was banking on the fact that she was going to be the pliant and subservient woman she was when Samuel was alive.