Chapter Six

The door to the office opened and Tempest found herself looking at her son across the desk. “What’s going on, Mom?”

“Just someone I’d thought was long gone from my life.” Just the man who gave me you.

“I have never seen you get like that, especially at work.” Dakota leaned back and rested his chin on his fingers.

“I’m just really tired.” She ran her hands over her face with a groan.

“Go home.”

Her eyes flew open. “What?”

“Go home, Mom. I can handle the bar.” Dakota pinned her with a look that dared her to challenge him.

“Okay, but if you need me, call.”

Her son grinned. “I have been doing this for a long time; I won’t need you. Go home.”

Standing, Tempest moved around the desk and hugged her son. “You are such a great kid, Dak. I love you.”

“Love you, too, Mom. I’ll walk you out.”

Tempest said goodnight to her staff and allowed her son to escort her out to her GMC Envoy. He unlocked the door for her and hugged her one more time. “I’ll see you at home,” she told him.

Dakota nodded. “Okay. Love you.” He turned around and jogged back in the establishment.

Heaving a huge sigh, Tempest lifted her foot to climb in her vehicle when a sinful smooth voice reached her ear. “Kind of young for you, isn’t he?”

Flames exploded in her eyes as she faced the man who had abandoned her twenty-one years ago. “Excuse me?” her tone was dagger-sharp.

Out of the shadows flowed six feet and six inches of pure muscle. Maverick moved like water, knowing nothing could stop it. He prowled closer to her.

Tempest held her ground despite her mind yelling at her to run. The years had been wonderful to him. He’d been fifteen the night he’d gotten her pregnant. His body had been youthfully strong, but nothing like it was now. The person before her was nothing but coiled muscle. If there were a live picture for sex appeal, this man was it, hands down.

“I said he seems a bit young for you. Is he even twenty?” Maverick quipped.

Determined to ignore his insults, Tempest curled her lip at him. “What do you want?”

“Tell me how you know my name,” he demanded.

“I know much more than that,” she taunted. “I know all about your life growing up in South Dakota.” Tempest let her rage get the better of her.

“What is this, some attempt by you and my parents to get me married?”

She erupted in harsh laughter. “I want nothing to do with your parents. And they sure as hell wouldn’t put me with you. They have plans for you.” Her voice dripped with thick sarcasm.

“Who are you?” his voice dropped to a warning. That is definitely a phrase I hear from my parents.

“My name is Tempest Burnell.”

“I don’t know you,” he swore after searching his mind for some sort of recognition.

“Let’s keep it that way,” she forced out sourly and tried to get into her vehicle.

Maverick reached out and latched onto her arm. “I want to know,” he ground out.

Years of rage at the man before her boiled over. “What?” she screeched. “What do you want to know? How abandoned I felt when you didn’t get in touch with me? When you treated me like I didn’t even exist?”

“What are you talking about?” Maverick dropped her arm as he noticed the pain in her dusky brown eyes behind the fury.

Reining in her emotions, she furiously shook her head. “I don’t need to do this. I’m leaving.”

Somehow, Maverick knew if she were mad at him she would stay, and perhaps he would be able to figure out what was going on. “Ah, yes. Have to run home and get ready for your boyfriend. Can’t you find anyone older?”

Crack! Her palm exploded across his smooth face. “Don’t you dare!”

He caught her wrist in his hand and glared at her. “Damn it, that hurt!”

“Good.” A twisted smile crossed her face. “You have no right to judge me.”

Tugging her closer to his hard body, he put his face close to hers. He tried not to think about how much he wanted to kiss her full lips or how soft her skin was beneath his hand. “But you can judge me?”

“You’re damn right,” she snapped self-righteously.

“By what right?” he queried.

“Because I am not the one who abandoned the other.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he bellowed.

Wrenching away from his grip, Tempest told him. “I’m talking about the fact that I was shunned by both our families. The fact that I had to move away and begin a new life, while you were allowed to grow up where you knew people. While I...while I had to face the reality that you didn’t care for me, and weren’t coming to find me.”

Maverick frowned as a deep dread settled in the pit of his stomach. Licking his firm lips, he looked at her and said, “Tell me how I know you.”

“My name used to be Sarah, Sarah Whitehall, and when I left that little town of Little Creek, South Dakota at the age of thirteen, I had no one. My family disowned me, and you and yours didn’t want me. You know me, because five weeks before I left, you got me pregnant. You got me pregnant and then left me to raise our child on my own. That young man you accused me of sleeping with is the result of that pregnancy. My son.”

Her voice no longer had any emotion in it at all. It was empty, dead; and for that reason, Maverick knew she was telling him the truth. Tempest felt drained and empty as she climbed silently into her vehicle and drove away.

Pregnant? Maverick felt his legs wobble as his chest tightened. It can’t be true. He remembered Sarah. She’d been so full of life, even though her family constantly put her down, especially her three brothers and one older sister.

At fifteen, he remembered walking out beyond the city lights and finding her where she normally sat, along an outcropping of rocks. He’d met her there and dried her tears before kissing her tenderly.

That night he’d bumbled around like any teen who wasn’t experienced in love. But he’d taken her virginity; and then to his immense embarrassment, after doing that, he’d shot his load deep within her, leaving her without finding any type of pleasure.

Shamed, Maverick had run off, leaving her alone in the night. He’d seen her a few times around town after that, but he’d made sure he never spoke to her, his embarrassment was too great. One day, he’d realized she was no longer in school and neither his nor her family spoke about her.

But with the typical care of a teen, he’d moved on with his life and in time forgot about her.

Moving slow with shock, Maverick was unprepared for the fist that shot out and connected with his jaw. Stumbling back from the force, he looked to see the young man that worked behind the bar coming in for another hit.

“Bastard!” the man shouted. “I hate you!”

Wanting to contain the irate man, yet not get hurt himself, Maverick tried talking to him. “Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” He was swinging with each word he snapped out.

Finally, some off-duty cops who were inside the bar pulled them apart. The one who had the young man reprimanded him, “Shame on you, Dakota. What is your mom gonna think when she has to bail you out of jail?”

“I’m not pressing charges,” Maverick announced. “We’ll just forget it.” He rubbed the spot on his chin that Dakota had hit repeatedly.

“Are you sure?” the officer holding him asked.

“Positive. No harm done.” Maverick waited until the officers agreed and then headed off toward his bike.

The drive back to his hotel room was done in a way that those who worked with him would have been scared, for the expression on his face was deadly. In the room, he took some cash and handed it to the manager at the front desk and packed his sea bag. In less than an hour, Maverick was on I-25N heading for his hometown.