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Zeke wouldn’t have, and he still didn’t believe it. He’d heard about the pictures more than he wanted to. He refused to look at them.
“Miss Goody Two Shoes got caught having her fun,” Mina said smoothly. “I can’t believe she thought she could get away with playing like that here. She should have known better. ”
Zeke’s lips thinned as he sat at the bottom of the bed and pulled his boots on. Dammit, he didn’t need to hear this again. He could feel that edge of burning anger in his gut, the one that warned him he was letting a woman get too close.
Caitlyn Rogue Walker was nothing to him, he told himself. He couldn’t let her become something to him, either. She was too damned innocent, no matter what those photos might show. Not to mention too damned young.
“Too bad the cameraperson didn’t take a few more. ” Mina yawned then. “Miss Walker wasn’t even fully undressed, but she was definitely getting ready to have a good time. ”
His jaw bunched. The innocent Miss Walker had pissed off the wrong people, and Zeke felt responsible for that. Hell, this was just what he needed. He had steered clear of her for the express purpose of making certain she was never targeted for any reason because of him, and she had ended up as a target because of his son instead.
She had caught the attention of two of the town’s worst inhabitants. A brother and sister who delighted in destroying anyone they could. She had caught their attention by defending his son at school.
He felt responsible. It was his son, and despite his knowledge that she had been set up, he still hadn’t managed to find a way to punish those who had hurt her or to tamp down his growing interest in a woman he had no business touching.
He could feel the curling knot of anger, a hint of territorial possessiveness where the teacher was concerned and squelched it immediately. Miss Walker was too young, too innocent. She wasn’t a woman that would accept a sex-only relationship, nor was she a woman Zeke would be able to hide the darker core of his sexuality with, as he did other women. Women such as Mina. Women who touched only his body, never his heart.
Miss Walker had the potential to touch the inner man, and he refused to give her the chance.
He’d failed to protect one woman in his life already; he wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“She’s Calvin Walker’s daughter, you know,” Mina continued. “Hell, I thought he was dead. What’s he doing with a daughter? Damned Walkers have never been worth crap, so it shouldn’t be surprising. ”
Zeke rose to his feet and turned back to her. “I’m heading out, Mina. Take care. ”
This relationship was over. He could barely manage civility now. Mina had always seemed like a kindhearted woman. She had a ready smile, compassionate hazel eyes, a gentle face. And a mean streak a mile wide. He’d learned that over the past few months.
When it came to other women, younger women, anyone she considered a threat to what she might want at the time, she turned viperous.
“And you’re not coming back. ” Her expression lost its amusement now. “Did you think I didn’t know your attention was waning, Zeke?”
“We had an understanding, Mina. ” He’d made certain of it before the relationship began.
She sat up in the bed, unashamedly naked, her short brown hair mussed attractively around her face.
“Your attention hasn’t been worth shit since you met that girl,” she accused him snidely. “You go through the motions, but I don’t doubt you’re thinking of her when you’re fucking me. ”
His brow lifted. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Mina, and it’s not a part of what we had.
In this case, you’re wrong. There’s nothing between me and Miss Walker. ”
And there never could be. She was too young, too tender. Zeke didn’t mess with women whose innocence lit their eyes like stars in the sky. Caitlyn Walker was the forever kind, and Zeke simply didn’t have that to give her. Forever required the truth, it required parts of himself being revealed, and he’d learned at a young age that the truth wasn’t always acceptable.
“There’s nothing between the two of you because you’re a closemouthed bastard intent on making certain you never give so much as an ounce of yourself,” she snapped.
“What’s wrong, Zeke, can’t anyone match the memory of that paragon you were married to? Or did you simply spend too much time in Los Angeles partying with all the gay boys?”
Zeke stared back at her silently. Prejudice in the mountains was still alive and thriving; he’d known that before he came home.
“Good-bye, Mina. ”
He turned and left the room. He’d be damned if he’d let himself be drawn into an argument with her, especially one she could use against him at any time in the future.
Zeke had a lot friends that still lived in L. A. , and yeah, a few of them were gay. He and his past wife, Elaina, hadn’t felt that sense of prejudice that thrived here. He didn’t give a damn what a man or woman’s sexual preference was. He hadn’t cared then, and he didn’t care now.
As he left Mina’s little house outside town, he reminded himself that he was here to do a job, not to make friends or to find another wife. He’d been born and bred in these mountains; he knew every cliff and hollow, every breath of breeze and sigh of the wind.
And he’d missed it like hell when he’d been forced to leave. Not that he’d had a choice at the time. It was leave with his mother or face the further destruction of his soul.
