The Rifters by M. Pax

Chapter 10

You can download this book at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, iBooks, Googleplay, and Smashwords. It's free on all sites. Sign up for my newsletter and get a free ebook of choice - mpaxauthor.com

*****

Chapter 10

Why wouldn’t he admit he was in love with her sister? Well, if he wouldn’t own up to it, Daelin would wager people in town had plenty to say. With less than a thousand souls, everyone in Settler had to know everyone else’s business.

How many secrets did her baby sister keep? Why had she never said she had patched things up with their mother? Granted, Rosalie was an extremely sore spot among Daelin, Charming, and their brother Cobb, so Daelin could forgive Charming’s discretion. Not about the boyfriend, though. Why keep Earl a secret? It made no sense. Maybe if Daelin knew him better the answers would come.

“Did you grow up in Settler?” she asked.

His palm tapped on the steering wheel. “No. Never spent much time in Oregon until recently. I’ve moved around a lot. Guess I bought into the commercial, ‘Come Settle in Settler’. Have you seen it?”

The tiny town had a commercial? Daelin would have to search it out and watch. She could use a laugh. “How long have you lived here?”

“Five years. Charming said you all moved around a lot.”

Charming had revealed a lot to this man for him to claim they weren’t involved. It wasn’t like her to trust a stranger with so many delicate details. All through college, Charming had pretended to have grown up outside Chicago and had made Daelin play along whenever she visited. The rest of the story claimed their parents had become missionaries in New Guinea. All that had changed. Now Charming painted illusions for Daelin. It hurt worse than the worst day of her life.

“Yeah,” Daelin said, “you met Rosalie. She didn’t like to stay with a band more than two years. If she wasn’t on tour, we moved about looking for the next band. American nomads is what we were. Where did you grow up?”

“Nowhereville, New York. Left as soon as I was old enough.”

“Really? A New Yorker? I never would have guessed.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t talk like one, and you seem so at home with the cowboy thing.” The clothes fit him as well as if he had come from another century, and he had the build of a cowboy, of a man who spent a lot of time working on the land.

He chuckled softly. “I was never a cowboy. I’m a businessman who pretends to be one.”

His pretending came off as genuine. He acted as if he and Charming were something innocent. With all her sister had disclosed about her early life, that wasn’t possible. Daelin watched his lips move while he spoke about the ranch, not really listening. Something tickled in the back of her mind about rescuing her sister. By Earl? From Earl? She chewed on her fingernails unable to remember and wanted a sandwich. How could she be hungry? “You pretend a lot, Mr. Blacke.”

The smile left his cheeks. “No. Not anymore.”

His answer hit her ear as odd. “What did you used to pretend about?”

His guffaw came out like a dry hack. “It wasn’t so much pretending as changing. You know, once in awhile you wake up and realize you aren’t the same person. When that happens, I can’t go on living the same life as the same man.”

She hadn’t taken him for the philosophical type. Earl was a definite enigma. “Did you learn your cooking skills in one of those former lives?”