Maverick sank back to the black cushion of the barstool
totally blown away. She’d known his full name. The bouncers
moved off which left him facing a distrustful young man.
“Hey,” he said to the man glaring at him. “What is her last
name?”
Black eyes narrowed as he stared at the man who had
made his mother lose control. “Why should I tell you
anything?” he snapped.
“Look, kid,” Maverick growled. “I want to know how
she knows me.”
Those hard eyes looked him over derisively before he
lifted his shoulders. “Don’t know.” Then he walked away.
Draining the rest of his beer, a very shaken up Maverick
walked out of the bar and into the night. Casting a glance over
his shoulder at the name of the bar, he figured it was time to do
some investigative work. It hadn’t been anything less than pure
hatred that came from her mouth, and he wanted to know why.
Four
The door to the office opened and Tempest found herself
looking at her son across the desk. “What’s going on, Mom?”
“Just someone I’d thought was long gone from my life.”
Just the man who gave me you.
“I have never seen you get like that, especially at work.”
Dakota leaned back and rested his chin on his fingers.
“I’m just really tired.” She ran her hands over her face
with a groan.
“Go home.”
Her eyes flew open. “What?”
“Go home, Mom. I can handle the bar.” Dakota pinned
her with a look that dared her to challenge him.
“Okay, but if you need me, call.”
Her son grinned. “I have been doing this for a long time;
I won’t need you. Go home.”
Standing, Tempest moved around the desk and hugged
her son. “You are such a great kid, Dak. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom. I’ll walk you out.”
Tempest said goodnight to her staff and allowed her son
to escort her out to her GMC Envoy. He unlocked the door for
her and hugged her one more time. “I’ll see you at home,” she
told him.
Dakota nodded. “Okay. Love you.” He turned around
and jogged back in the establishment.
Heaving a huge sigh, Tempest lifted her foot to climb in
her vehicle when a sinful smooth voice reached her ear. “Kind
of young for you, isn’t he?”
Flames exploded in her eyes as she faced the man who
had abandoned her twenty-one years ago. “Excuse me?” her
tone was dagger-sharp.
Out of the shadows flowed six feet and six inches of
pure muscle. Maverick moved like water, knowing nothing
could stop it. He prowled closer to her.
Tempest held her ground despite her mind yelling at her
to run. The years had been wonderful to him. He’d been fifteen
the night he’d gotten her pregnant. His body had been
youthfully strong, but nothing like it was now. The person
before her was nothing but coiled muscle. If there were a live
picture for sex appeal, this man was it, hands down.
“I said he seems a bit young for you. Is he even twenty?”
Maverick quipped.
Determined to ignore his insults, Tempest curled her lip
at him. “What do you want?”
“Tell me how you know my name,” he demanded.
“I know much more than that,” she taunted. “I know all
about your life growing up in South Dakota.” Tempest let her
rage get the better of her.
“What is this, some attempt by you and my parents to
get me married?”
She erupted in harsh laughter. “I want nothing to do
with your parents. And they sure as hell wouldn’t put me with
you. They have plans for you.” Her voice dripped with thick
sarcasm.
“Who are you?” his voice dropped to a warning. That is
definitely a phrase I hear from my parents.
“My name is Tempest Burnell.”
“I don’t know you,” he swore after searching his mind
for some sort of recognition.
“Let’s keep it that way,” she forced out sourly and tried
to get into her vehicle.
Maverick reached out and latched onto her arm. “I want
to know,” he ground out.
Years of rage at the man before her boiled over. “What?”
she screeched. “What do you want to know? How abandoned I
felt when you didn’t get in touch with me? When you treated
me like I didn’t even exist?”
“What are you talking about?” Maverick dropped her
arm as he noticed the pain in her dusky brown eyes behind the
fury.
Reining in her emotions, she furiously shook her head.
“I don’t need to do this. I’m leaving.”
Somehow, Maverick knew if she were mad at him she
would stay, and perhaps he would be able to figure out what
was going on. “Ah, yes. Have to run home and get ready for
your boyfriend. Can’t you find anyone older?”
Crack! Her palm exploded across his smooth face. “Don’t
you dare!”
He caught her wrist in his hand and glared at her.
“Damn it, that hurt!”
“Good.” A twisted smile crossed her face. “You have no
right to judge me.”
Tugging her closer to his hard body, he put his face close
to hers. He tried not to think about how much he wanted to
kiss her full lips or how soft her skin was beneath his hand.
“But you can judge me?”
“You’re damn right,” she snapped self-righteously.
“By what right?” he queried.
“Because I am not the one who abandoned the other.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he bellowed.
Wrenching away from his grip, Tempest told him. “I’m
talking about the fact that I was shunned by both our families.
The fact that I had to move away and begin a new life, while
you were allowed to grow up where you knew people. While
I...while I had to face the reality that you didn’t care for me,
and weren’t coming to find me.”
Maverick frowned as a deep dread settled in the pit of
his stomach. Licking his firm lips, he looked at her and said,
“Tell me how I know you.”
“My name used to be Sarah, Sarah Whitehall, and when
I left that little town of Little Creek, South Dakota at the age of
thirteen, I had no one. My family disowned me, and you and
yours didn’t want me. You know me, because five weeks
before I left, you got me pregnant. You got me pregnant and
then left me to raise our child on my own. That young man you
accused me of sleeping with is the result of that pregnancy. My
son.”
Her voice no longer had any emotion in it at all. It was
empty, dead; and for that reason, Maverick knew she was
telling him the truth. Tempest felt drained and empty as she
climbed silently into her vehicle and drove away.
Pregnant? Maverick felt his legs wobble as his chest
tightened. It can’t be true. He remembered Sarah. She’d been so
full of life, even though her family constantly put her down,
espec
ially her three brothers and one older sister.
At fifteen, he remembered walking out beyond the city
lights and finding her where she normally sat, along an
outcropping of rocks. He’d met her there and dried her tears
before kissing her tenderly.
That night he’d bumbled around like any teen who
wasn’t experienced in love. But he’d taken her virginity; and
then to his immense embarrassment, after doing that, he’d shot
his load deep within her, leaving her without finding any type
of pleasure.
Shamed, Maverick had run off, leaving her alone in the
night. He’d seen her a few times around town after that, but
he’d made sure he never spoke to her, his embarrassment was
too great. One day, he’d realized she was no longer in school
and neither his nor her family spoke about her.
But with the typical care of a teen, he’d moved on with
his life and in time forgot about her.
Moving slow with shock, Maverick was unprepared for
the fist that shot out and connected with his jaw. Stumbling
back from the force, he looked to see the young man that
worked behind the bar coming in for another hit.
“Bastard!” the man shouted. “I hate you!”
Wanting to contain the irate man, yet not get hurt
himself, Maverick tried talking to him. “Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” He was swinging with each
word he snapped out.
Finally, some off-duty cops who were inside the bar
pulled them apart. The one who had the young man
reprimanded him, “Shame on you, Dakota. What is your mom
gonna think when she has to bail you out of jail?”
“I’m not pressing charges,” Maverick announced. “We’ll
just forget it.” He rubbed the spot on his chin that Dakota had
hit repeatedly.
“Are you sure?” the officer holding him asked.
“Positive. No harm done.” Maverick waited until the
officers agreed and then headed off toward his bike.
The drive back to his hotel room was done in a way that
those who worked with him would have been scared, for the
expression on his face was deadly. In the room, he took some
cash and handed it to the manager at the front desk and packed
his sea bag. In less than an hour, Maverick was on I-25N
heading for his hometown.
_
Dakota burst through the door to his mother’s house. He
was furious and he wanted some answers. “Mom!” he hollered
the second his hand slammed the door behind him.
“Don’t yell inside, Dak,” Tempest reprimanded as she
looked at him from her spot in the kitchen.
“Who is that man?” he demanded, not lowering his
voice. “That one you were talking to outside.” At her wideeyed
expression he added, “Yes, I overheard it all.”
Defeated, Tempest sank to a chair at the round kitchen
table. With one flick of her wrist she drank her two fingers of
Irish whiskey in one gulp. Closing her eyes for a moment, she
waved her son to the table.
Unsure of how he should feel, Dakota did as she’d
silently bid him to do, grabbing along his way two glasses and
the pitcher of lemonade. He poured them both a glass and
removed the Old Fashioned glass from in front of her. “Drink
this,” he commanded.
Her jaw clenching, Tempest did as she was told. She
took a sip of the lemonade and met her son’s dark gaze. A gaze
that was so like his father’s. “That man is your father.”
“I thought you said he didn’t want us,” Dakota fumed.
His strong fists clenching and unclenching.
“I don’t know what he is doing here. I don’t want to
know.” Tempest looked longingly at her whiskey that was on
the countertop but drank her lemonade instead. How that man
made her long for a drink.
“I hate him. I hate him for what he did to you,” Dakota
swore as his hand smacked the dark wood of the table.
“Sweetie, I wish there was something I could say to
make it better. I wish I had told you all of this sooner, but I
didn’t and I’m sorry.”
“So, Bertha wasn’t your mom?”
Tempest shook her head as she ran a finger around the
rim of her glass. “No, she was my aunt. But after I got
pregnant, my parents disowned me and she was the only one
who was willing to accept me. The day I went to tell your
father about you, his parents…well, let’s just say they treated
me about the same as my own did. Up until the day you were
born, I’d held out hope that he would send me a letter or just
show up at the door.”
“But he never did,” Dakota finished.
“No, he didn’t. I haven’t seen him since about two
weeks after we slept together.” She raised her eyes to meet her
son’s, expecting to see disgust, anger, or even hatred. Instead,
all she saw was compassion and sorrow.
“I’m sorry.” Standing up, Dakota moved around the
table to put his arms around his mother. “I’m sorry that I was
the cause of so much pain.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Sweetie, don’t ever apologize. You
are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I wouldn’t
change a single day of my life since you came into it.” Turning
her head so she could look into her son’s obsidian gaze she sent
him a smile. “None of this is your fault and I don’t ever want
you think it was.”
Tempest leaned in and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
With one last hug, Dakota took a seat across from her.
“This discussion isn’t over, Mom.”
She arched a brow at him and drank the rest of her
lemonade. “Who is the parent here?” she quipped.
Dakota just arched a black brow and stared at her. They
held each other’s gazes until finally he broke away. “I have
never been able to stare you down,” he complained as a grin
crossed his face.
“And you never will; that is the power of being the
mother—I win.” She laughed as a total look of disgust filled his
face.
Grumbling about the unfairness of it all, Dakota got up
and poured them both more lemonade and set out a plate of
cookies to go with their drinks. “What if he is here about me?”
Tempest reached back and undid the ponytail holding
up her thick hair. “Dakota, you are twenty-one, you don’t have
to do anything you don’t want to. I will not try to sway you in
any decisions.”
“I hit him,” Dakota blurted out.
“What?” she screeched. “Why?”
“Because you hit him and he’d abandoned us. When I
heard you tell him, I was furious. So after you left I punched
him. I hit him a few times actually. Cole and Trey were there to
break it up.”
“Ah, hell! Are you going to be charged?”
Dakota shook his head, his shoulder-length dark hair
flowing easily around his neck. “Nope, he said he wasn’t
pressing charges.”
“Well, you are very lucky. Look, Dakota, I have no idea
why he is here or what he wants. So please just try to be polite
if he comes back into the bar.”
“Anything for you, Mom.” He ate another cookie and
smiled. “I have a date this weekend, so I won’t be in the bar.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” She took a drink, fighting
the urge to pry. Dakota wasn’t ever on the schedule at work
since she wanted his schooling to be first and foremost.
“Don’t you want to know who she is?”
“I figured you would tell me if you wanted me to
know.”
“You are the best mother in the world.” He stood and
put his glass in the sink. At the doorway he turned back
around and grinned. “It’s Shelia.”
As her child slipped down the hall, Tempest shook her
head. She knew Shelia and liked the girl, a very intelligent
black woman who was also majoring in African-American
Studies. She’d been extremely polite the few times Tempest had
met her.
Tempest sat in the kitchen for a while longer. When the
urge to scream and cry had left her, she got up and headed to
her room.
As she stood in front of her mirror, her dark eyes were
confused as she asked, “What are you up too, James?”
Shaking her head, she did her nightly meditation and
climbed into bed. Sliding between the cool cotton sheets she
allowed the gentle scent of her fabric softener to surround her,
helping her to relax even more.
There was no sign of James “Maverick” Chayton
Lonetree in her bar for the rest of the week. More disgust filled
her as she imagined he’d discovered he had a child and ran
again.
Tempest struggled to not let it affect her, but having
seen him after all this time did funny things to her. Her body
seemed to be at odds with her heart. She might be furious with
his behavior in the past, but she wasn’t dead; and she’d reacted
to his masculine good looks.
Pouring all her energy into work, Tempest was
determined not to let his memory swarm her every thought.
She worked until she dropped and on her time off, she made
sure to stay busy.
Her house had to be one of the only places in the desert
that didn’t have any dirt. She scrubbed and cleaned until she
was exhausted. But, still, every time she closed her eyes or had
a free second, Maverick’s handsome face had stared at her with
that bewildered expression as if the impossible had happened.