Do You Take This Maverick?

Reacting automatically, Levi had grabbed his wife by the shoulders to steady her. That turned out to be a good thing, seeing how if he hadn’t, Claire would have probably stumbled backward and fallen while still holding Bekka tightly against her.

Holding on to Claire like this did more than just prevent a very unfortunate accident from happening. The exceedingly brief contact once again brought home the fact that he’d missed her. Missed his wife acutely. Missed the sight of her, the feel of her. The very first time he’d laid eyes on her, he’d known. Known that Claire Strickland was the one for him. Known that there was something very special going on between them.

The chemistry that all but sizzled whenever they were close to one another was just too hard to miss and too intense to ignore. At that moment he’d realized that he would have rather waited forever for Claire than settled for anyone else, no matter how willing she might have been to be in a relationship with him.

Claire was completely shaken. It took everything she had not to visibly tremble. Ever since she had thrown her husband out of her life, her nights had been filled with Levi.

Filled with dreams of him, with memories of him.

Filled with overwhelming longing for him.

In the privacy of the room she and Bekka were living in, she’d allowed herself to cry over a precious relationship that she believed in her heart had died—and it was her fault.

Bumping into Levi like this, in the last place in the world she’d thought that she would see him, her first reaction was a surge of sheer joy, not to mention that every fiber of her being had instantly—physically—responded to the very sight of him. At that moment she would have thrown her arms around Levi’s neck if her arms had been free.

The next moment her sanity, as she chose to view it, returned.

Luckily for her, she realized, her arms were filled with baby, so she couldn’t go with her first impulse. That allowed her second impulse to take root and swiftly take over. Her second impulse belonged to the young woman who had felt hurt and abandoned that fateful night a month ago. It belonged to the young woman whose husband was absent a good deal of the time—not to mention that the one time he wasn’t absent, he’d turned his back on her, choosing a stupid poker game over her company. That made the whole thing even worse because he’d abandoned her without so much as a second thought, as if she were some inconsequential afterthought in his life.

As that realization had taken root, Claire felt that she had to be worthless and unattractive in his eyes. This despite the fact that she had always made sure that she was her most attractive before he laid eyes on her in the morning. Even before she’d said “I do” she was determined not to turn into one of those wives who allowed herself to let her appearance go after the wedding.

To that end, Claire made sure that she was always up before Levi so that she could put on her makeup and be flawlessly beautiful when her husband looked at her first thing in the morning.

It wasn’t always easy, but she’d managed. Her makeup was flawless. The same went for her hair. Not a single strand was out of place, despite the demands of motherhood, made that much more acute by a colicky baby.

Claire’s first priority was to make sure that she was just as attractive to her husband on an everyday basis as she had been the first time he’d seen her.

And where had that gotten her? Abandoned for the first night they’d had baby-free in eight months, that’s where, she thought angrily.

The honeymoon, Claire thought not for the first time, was definitely over and so was, by default, their marriage.

Claire pressed her lips together, suppressing a sob. She just wished she didn’t still want Levi so damn much. Levi was a fantastic, thoughtful lover. She had no need to go through a litany of others to know just how very special he was. Her heart—and her body—told her so.

But even so, she refused to allow herself to be a needy woman in that respect.

Refused to allow Levi to see the advantage he had over her.

Finally finding her voice, she demanded, “What are you doing here?” as she shrugged out of his grasp.

The second he was sure that Claire was steady on her feet, he dropped his hands from her shoulders. Making eye contact with his daughter, he winked at her.

Placing her hand so that she blocked the baby’s line of vision, Claire turned so that Bekka was against her and not between them.

Levi squelched the protest that rose to his lips. The only way he was going to get Claire back was not to antagonize her any further. That entailed walking on eggshells, but, seeing what was at stake, he was up to it. He had to be.

“I’m staying here for a while,” he told her.

Claire’s eyes widened in disbelief. Levi had never lied to her before—but he had to be lying now. There was no other explanation for what he had just said.

“No, you’re not,” she cried. Why was he messing with her mind like this? Wasn’t it enough that he had ripped her heart right out of her chest?

“Yes, I am,” he contradicted. “I convinced your grandfather to rent a room to me.”

Claire felt as if someone had just literally yanked a rug out from under her feet and sent her crashing down to the floor.

Her grandfather wouldn’t do that to her—would he? As early as this morning, she would have confidently maintained that her grandfather wouldn’t rent Levi a room because he knew how much it would upset her—not to mention that allowing Levi to stay at the boarding house would effectively negate the very reason she was staying here instead of in the two-bedroom apartment that she had shared with Levi.

But now, looking at the confident expression on her estranged husband’s face, she no longer knew if what he was telling her was a pack of lies—or actually the truth.

The look in her eyes dared him to continue with what she viewed as his fabrication. “Why would my grandfather do that?” she demanded.

It took everything Levi had in him not to just sweep her into his arms and kiss her, baby and all. But he knew he couldn’t force this. For now he had to be satisfied with giving her his most sincere look as he pleaded his case, laying it at her feet. “Maybe your grandfather sees how much you mean to me.”

Was he still doing this? Still perpetuating the lie he had tried to sell her in the wee hours of the morning when he had come stumbling in after the wedding reception had long been over? She was no more inclined to believe him now than she had been then.

Less, in fact.

There was no way she was going to let Levi think that she bought his story.

“Ha! If I meant anything to you, you’d be around more often, not working at all hours, going out of town for so-called meetings at the drop of a hat and going off to play poker when we were supposed to be spending time together on our first free night in months.”

“We were spending time together,” Levi insisted. “We went to the wedding together.”

How gullible did he think she was? “I was in a room with a crying baby while you were at a poker table surrounded by your friends and playing cards until dawn. Just how is that being together?” Claire demanded hotly. Bekka began to fuss, and Claire automatically started to rock the baby to try and soothe her.

“Okay,” Levi conceded. “But up to that point, we were together,” he reminded her.

Stressed out, Claire began to pat the baby’s bottom, trying desperately to calm her down.

“That was the whole point,” she informed Levi. “After the wedding we were supposed to spend some quality time together,” she insisted. “My grandparents were taking care of Bekka. You and I were supposed to spend a nice, romantic evening together.”

“How was I to know that? You didn’t tell me,” Levi pointed out.

Claire stared at him, stunned. He couldn’t have been that thickheaded—could he?

“I shouldn’t have to tell you,” she cried. “You’re supposed to have wanted that on your own, not had me force-feed you your lines or hold up a cue card for you.”

The only way he could think to backtrack out of the potential explosion in the making he saw coming was to apologize. So he gave it a shot.

“Look, if I messed up, I’m sorry—”

“If? If?” Claire echoed incredulously. “You most certainly did mess up, no if about it.”

She was getting him exasperated again, hitting the ball totally into his yard and then not allowing him to retrieve it or hit it back. He should have expected as much, he thought.

Mentally, Levi counted to ten, telling himself that he had to be calm or he would wind up losing any chance he had to get Claire back.

To get Bekka back.

He missed them both like crazy.

“Claire,” he said as evenly as possible, “I’m trying to apologize here.”

Her eyes were like small, intense laser beams, trained on his every move. “I’m glad you told me because I wouldn’t have known otherwise,” she informed him.

“You’re making it really hard to be nice to you,” he told her, his anger getting the best of him, at least for the moment.

“Then don’t bother,” Claire snapped coldly. She was forced to raise her voice because Bekka had started to wail again. The increased volume only made the baby cry more. “Because it’s not going to get you anywhere. Apologies have to be sincere, and I can see now that every single word out of your mouth is nothing but a fabrication, a lie.”

“What are you talking about?” Levi cried, completely confused. “When have I lied to you?”

Claire tossed her head, wanting desperately to get away from him and wanting, just as desperately, to never have gotten to this point in the first place. This wasn’t the way she envisioned her life when she’d watched Levi slip the ring on her finger two years ago.

“You said you loved me,” she accused.

“How is that a lie?” he wanted to know. “I do love you.”

“No, you don’t!” Claire cried. “If you loved me, you’d be home more often at night and you certainly wouldn’t have picked poker over me.”

He closed his eyes, searching for strength. How did he get through to her? “That again,” he retorted. “I didn’t pick poker over you—”

“Oh, someone put a gun to your head then, telling you to deal or they’d blow your brains out, is that it?”

“It wasn’t a choice between you and poker,” Levi insisted. How could she possibly think that? “You’re not in the same league.”

Was that supposed to make her happy? Claire looked at her husband coldly, doing her very best not to allow her mind to drift, to make her think back and relive exciting, intimate moments with him just because of their proximity. “Thanks.”

Her icy tone ripped through him, and Levi threw up his hands in total disgust. “I just can’t win with you, can I?”

“No, because I see right through you,” she informed him, her voice cold enough to freeze a cup of hot coffee. Just then, as if she was aware that she had lapsed into another long, quiet moment, the baby began to cry. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve agitated the baby,” she accused.

“Me?” he said, stunned at the way she could shift blame onto someone else’s shoulders so easily. “You’re the one who’s shouting.”

Claire made no effort to back down or back off. The baby grew louder with each passing second. “If I’m shouting it’s so I can get the words through your thick skull.”

He sighed, shaking his head and struggling not to have his temper snap. “You’re impossible.”

“Right back at you!” she retorted.

Levi strode away before he said something he was going to regret and couldn’t take back.

“That’s right,” she taunted, hurling the words at his back. “Run. That’s all you ever do. You’re never willing to talk things out, to own your mistakes. It’s just easier for you to run away from any confrontation.”

Don’t say it, don’t say it, Levi counseled himself, afraid that if he did open his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to control the words that would come flying out. There was no doubt about it. Claire knew how to press all his buttons. Press them until he believed that all the negative thoughts she was spouting and hurling at him were his own, and all the detrimental things that Claire had said against him she actually believed to be the gospel truth.

There was a child to think of, Levi reminded himself. He couldn’t just put this all behind him and walk out. Besides, he didn’t want to. What he wanted was his life back.

Not today, Wyatt. Not after that little run-in, a voice in his head mocked him.

But where did that leave them?

They were at an impasse, he thought. But one of them was going to have to give in if this was ever going to be resolved.

Walking away, Levi paused for a second to look over his shoulder at his wife and daughter. Even as angry as she made him, he couldn’t help thinking how much he’d missed having them in his life.

How empty his life seemed with the realization that he didn’t have them to come home to anymore.

That had to change.

But how?

He wasn’t about to come crawling over to her side. After all, a man did have his pride.

But pride was a cold thing to take to bed with him, Levi thought unhappily.

Besides, there had to be more to this. She couldn’t be this angry over a stupid poker game—could she? He needed to get her to do more than just shout at him. He had to get her to come around—and really talk to him about what she was feeling,

Squelching the desire to march back to her, take her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot all about this stupid argument and all the stupid things she was saying to him, Levi forced himself to keep walking.

This was all probably just a ruse on her part anyway. Her so-called accusations were just an excuse she was using to stay away from him because she was disappointed in him.

He’d failed her somehow, and by failing he’d inadvertently shown her that he just wasn’t good enough for her. That he couldn’t give her the kind of comforts she had grown up with. Even if he tried to approximate the kind of life she’d had before she married him by working his way up the ladder and earning more money, she complained that he was never home. And if he kept the hours that she wanted him to, if he was home earlier, then he couldn’t give her any of the things she’d come to expect in her day-to-day life.

Either way, Levi thought glumly, he was doomed.

He had to get his priorities straight. He needed to find a way to fix all this and soon, otherwise, he was going to lose her for good.

Levi didn’t know how much longer he could put up with living without his girls. Living without seeing Claire and Bekka every day.

There had to be a way to fix all this. There just had to be.

* * *

“Grandpa, can I see you for a minute?” Claire asked, standing in the doorway of Gene’s cubbyhole of an office.

Gene rose to his feet. For the time being, what he was working on was temporarily forgotten.

“You, princess, can see me for a whole hour if you like,” he told her cheerfully. Joining them, he asked, “And how are my two best girls this morning?”

Claire thought of her run-in with Levi a few minutes ago. “Stunned and confused,” she told him.

Bushy eyebrows drew together, forming a squiggly line worthy of a fat caterpillar.

“Come again?” Gene asked. “Are you stunned and confused, peanut?” he asked Bekka.

Responding to the sound of his deep, resonant voice, the baby cooed at Gene, making him laugh with unabashed pleasure.

“Grandpa, she can’t talk,” Claire informed the older man flatly.

“Maybe you can’t understand her, but she can talk,” he assured Claire with a touch of whimsy. “Look at her expression,” he said pointedly. “That little girl is definitely trying to communicate.”

“And so am I,” Claire said to her grandfather in barely curbed exasperation.

Faced with this situation, Gene sobered slightly. “Go ahead, princess. I’m listening.”

Claire’s frown deepened. “Levi is staying here at the boarding house.”

He had a feeling that Claire knew she wasn’t telling him anything that he wasn’t already aware of. He didn’t bother feigning surprise at her news.

“Yes, I know.”

She stared at the older man in disbelief. How could he have betrayed her this way? Unless Levi was lying about this, too. She found herself fervently hoping that he was. Otherwise, this was really going to shake her faith in her grandfather.

“He said you rented him a room.” Maybe there was some other explanation for his being here.

The next moment her grandfather dashed that slim hope. He nodded his head. “I did.”

Her mouth all but dropped open. “Why?” Claire demanded.

“Well, I couldn’t very well not rent it to him,” Gene replied seriously. “That would be prejudicial.”

Claire’s big brown eyes widened. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you saying you were afraid he’d report you to the sheriff?”

Wide shoulders moved up and down in a vague shrug. He went with the excuse his granddaughter had unknowingly come up with.

“You never know,” he told her.

“Grandpa, this is Levi,” she reminded him. “He wouldn’t do that. Levi likes you.”

“He also likes you,” Gene told her. “A lot. And all he wants is a chance to prove it.”

Claire couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re taking his side, Grandpa?” she cried, appalled.

“Like I told your grandmother, I’m not taking any sides, I’m just making sure that both sides get a chance to be heard.”

“I don’t need to ‘hear’ anything,” his granddaughter informed him. “Besides,” she reminded the man, “weren’t you the one who once told me that actions speak louder than words?”

“I might have said that,” he allowed, then went on to remind her, “I’m also the one who said everyone deserves a second chance.”

“If you mean Levi, I gave him a second chance.” She was working herself up. “I gave him lots of second chances, and he blew them all.”

“He’s been skipping out on you to play poker on a regular basis?” Gene asked innocently.

“No,” she admitted reluctantly. As upset as she was about this situation, she wasn’t about to lie about it to her grandfather.

Her grandfather looked at her pointedly. “Then what?” he wanted to know.

She was referring to Levi going out of town for meetings and seminars as well as coming home late and falling asleep on the couch before she could get his dinner warmed up. But she had no intentions of going into all that now.

Besides, she had a feeling that her grandfather would be taking Levi’s side in that, saying he saw nothing wrong in a man trying to better his family’s lot by putting in all those long hours at work.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she informed her grandfather and with that, she turned on her heel and hurried away to find her grandmother.

At least her grandmother sided with her, Claire thought.

Or at least she hoped so.

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