Texas Heroes_ Volume 1(54)
His very certainty sent Maddie’s temper shooting through the roof. She stepped over a pile of bedding and stalked across the floor, stabbing one finger in his chest. “You pompous oaf.”
“What?” Boone’s eyes widened in shock, then narrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Oh, God,” Maddie’s laughter was a harsh bark in her chest. “I can’t win.” She paced the open portion of the floor.
“What are you saying?”
She whirled. “I can either tell you what I was doing and hurt you or stay quiet and let you believe the worst of me.”
Boone shrugged. “It’s no skin off my nose if you want to have a fling with Devlin Marlowe.”
Hurt wrestled with anger for dominance. Maddie stood there before him, her whole body shaking. “I am not having a fling with Devlin Marlowe.”
“Whatever you want to call it, makes no difference to me. You’re a free agent.”
Maddie doubled up her fist and punched him square in the center of his chest. “Stop saying that, damn you. I’m not like that. I would never—” Maddie stopped short, stunned by the quick flash of pain in his eyes.
His jaw went tight and hard. “I won’t stand by and be made a fool again, Maddie. You never lied to me that you would stay. Don’t start lying now. You don’t owe me anything. The truth is all I ask.”
She drew a deep breath. “All right. You want the truth? Just remember that I tried to protect you.”
Boone frowned. “Protect me?”
“You’d better sit down, Boone. I honestly don’t think you want to hear this.”
“I’m fine right here.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “And we already discussed whether or not you should be deciding what I’m ready to hear. Go on, Maddie.”
She needed to occupy her hands, so she filled the teakettle and started the burner beneath it.
“Come on. Stop stalling. I already know you care about Marlowe. Finish it.”
“Dev is only helping me with research, no matter what you think you saw.”
His jaw was tight. “What kind of research?”
“I found my grandmother’s diary.”
One eyebrow lifted, but he simply nodded for her to continue.
Maddie sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, praying for the right words. “Boone, my grandmother believed that your mother might have given birth to my father’s child and then given it up after my father vanished.”
If she’d hit him with a two-by-four, she doubted that he would have looked more shocked.
“What?” But he was already shaking his head. “No way. Never.”
“Boone, Dev has found out it’s true. You have a sister, a half-sister.”
“No. That’s wrong. My mother would never—” His voice went arrow-sharp. “She loved children. She couldn’t have any more after me, but she always wanted…”
When Maddie reached for him to console, he jerked away. “That’s a damn lie. My mother would never have given away a child of hers. And she wouldn’t have deceived us about it.”
Maddie had never seen him this agitated, not even the night when he rescued her from Hank. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.”
“Show me the proof.”
“Dev can’t be positive yet that the baby was my father’s, but no one ever saw Jenny with another man, so…”
“Don’t even think that she was some kind of slut.” He headed for the door, then turned, hands clenched into fists, shoulders tight bands of muscle. “If any of this is true—I say if, mind you, then it’s Dalton Wheeler’s fault. He had no right to get her pregnant and then abandon her just like he abandoned everything else.”
Maddie knew he spoke out of shock and hurt, but she had to defend the father she had loved. “I doubt that he ever knew. But it doesn’t matter. We have to find her.”
“Why are you doing this, Maddie? You’re leaving. Why can’t you let the past be?”
“I have to know. You can’t keep me from finding her, Boone.”
“You were going to keep me in the dark.”
“Only until I knew for sure.”
Boone picked up his duffel bag and the pile of bedding. He jerked the door open and looked back.
“What other secrets do you plan to keep from me? Any other decisions do you plan to make on my behalf? How much more are you going to tear up my life before you walk away?”
Maddie would have answered, if she’d had any idea what to say.
But she would have been talking to an empty room.
Boone punched down his pillow one more time and rolled over, looking for a spot that felt right. He’d brought a bedroll, so the hay wasn’t the problem, he knew.