“Ready, Daddy.”
He looked as if he were in pain.
“Unless you want to stay here.” I laughed.
***
Cactus leaned back, his elbows on the blanket he’d spread out before we sat down. He’d brought me to a scenic overlook, the kind the tourists never found. We were out in the middle of nowhere, overlooking miles upon miles of more desert. With the sun setting in brilliant pinks and oranges, it was the most beautiful thing I’dever seen. I was at peace for the first time in my life, not even minding the company next to me.
“I’ll thank Angelica when I see her tomorrow for the lasagna. It was delicious.” I swiped at my lips with the napkin before setting my empty plate next to me.
“I stopped by before coming to see you, and she cut two pieces.” He stared straight ahead before letting out a deep sigh. “You’re not invisible anymore. That’s the thanks you get for making a moment for the kid. His mother’s video made sure of it. If there’s anything you need to tell me about your history, now is the time to do so. I can’t protect the saloon if I don’t know what to look for.”
I should have remembered my place—a part of the saloon. This was an interrogation in disguise.
“Where are you from?” He pretended to watch the sun shift, but he was really studying me from the corner of his eye.
“How long have you been in Tombstone?” I shot back. I didn’t expect him to answer, but this week had drained me, and I was angry at myself for making more out of the situation than there was.
“I was in Tombstone for about two years before I went nomad. Came back fourteen years ago and been here ever since.” I felt his gaze as he asked me again where I was from.
“The Jersey Shore.” I curled my legs in to wrap my arms around my knees. I couldn’t get out of telling him something, but I was afraid I would reveal too much.
“It’s a long way from there to here, and you don’t have the accent.” He stacked one boot over the other, swinging them back and forth as he waited.
I said nothing, reminding myself this wasn’t about protecting me. This was about minimizing the damage from that mother’s video. Lulu had downloaded it and sent it to me. It was cute, but I had been clearly visible. They’d called me by my real name, and there weren’t many people named Roxy. If anyone wanted to come find me, they knew exactly where I was.
“My father was career military. Tucson was his last station, but my mother liked to take us to Tombstone for a treat. It was only an hour,and she could wow us as kids with stories about cowboys and bandits. It’s probably why I came here when I was eighteen, begging to prospect.”
He’d given me a piece of himself. It wasn’t anything incriminating, but with how tight-lipped he normally was, I thought this might have been a piece of buried treasure. I laid my chin on my knees, staring off. My story wasn’t valuable, but I gave him a piece of me in return. “My mother could barely take care of herself, and I didn’t know my father. On the Shore, only the insanely wealthy or the mafia have accents—which is why that’s the first thing you notice. We were neither.”
The conversation tapered off, each of us staring past the overlook, lost in our own thoughts.
“What is a girl doing driving a car in the middle of the desert?” He’d phrased it openly, so that if I didn’t want to tell him, I could work my way out of this conversation, and he would let me. However, I didn’t want to hide anything. I wasn’t running from the law, and no one was looking for me. If I bypassed the actual answer, I was just as guilty as he made me out to be.
“She dumped her boyfriend at a gas station and took off.”
“You running from someone?” he growled.
“No.” I could have left it at that, letting him think whatever he wanted. I didn’t owe him anything, but I’d had a niggling feeling in the back of my brain, and I needed someone to know, for my safety. “He might see the video and show up. It wasn’t an…amicable split.”
Silence. Not even the desert dared to whisper.
“Tell me, sweetheart.” His voice softened.
I wouldn’t hide from my past. Stretching, I moved my plate before turning and crossing my legs to face his profile. “It was Jimmy’s bright idea. He sold it as getting out of Jersey, seeing the world, and making more money than we ever dreamed of. I thought it was the stupidest idea I’d ever heard until he wore me down enough to say yes.”
He laughed, turning his head towards me. “You really bought that shit? You’re smarter than that.”
“I’d never been over fifteen miles from the Shore, and like I said, he wore me down. I was having a shit day, and when he brought it up again, it seemed like the answer to starting fresh. North Carolina. South Carolina. Tennessee. I always found work, but he’d always spend it until it was time to go. Usually after a bar fight. I didn’t catch on until about Colorado.”
His jaw ticked, and his eyes burned into my soul. I knew enough about him to know he wasn’t judging me. He couldn’t believe I had fallen so long for that gimmick, and truthfully, he was right. I didn’t like to think about it because I should have seen the scheme sooner, even though it didn’t start out that way.
“Where’s Jimmy now?”
“Williams, maybe.”
Cactus sat straight up, his whole body turning to face me. “That’s Bear Canyon Disciples territory.” He shook his head. “What the fuck were you doing there?”
