‘Sunshine and Whiskey’ blared from the jukebox of the murky bar. Stead sipped his beer, watching the couples stepping on the dance floor in an intricate mating dance. Ace sat at one of the tiny tables, trying his damndest to talk a pretty barrel racer into his lap. Typical early Friday night.

In the old days, he’d have been right beside Ace, having a grand time. Now, the mirror could be a TV screen for as much as he felt a part of it. He was separate. Different. Alone, in a roomful of people.

A group of giggling girls with swingy earrings and vampire-inspired nails and lipstick sashayed by. “Hey, Stead.”

“Nice ride tonight.”

“Wanna join us?”

He raised his beer in salute, but shook his head. “Thanks, ladies, but I’m heading out in a few.” And he would too, except the flea-bag hotel room he and Ace shared was barely adequate for sleeping—the thought of hanging out there alone was flat pathetic. He’d come tonight in the hope that he could walk back into his old life. It was clear to him now, that door was closed.

And crying in his beer wasn’t going to help.

He tuned out the bar babble behind him. He’d always been too busy living for the now to worry about the future. It seemed the future had arrived when he’d woken to ceiling tiles. He’d ridden tonight, but he wasn’t kidding himself that he’d been on anything more than a practice pen bull. The real test would come tomorrow. If he was lucky enough to make the final round.

But he had to face facts. He was twenty-nine. Not ancient for a bull rider, but he should be peaking and getting ready to ride on a cushion of big purses downhill to the end of his career. He was proud of making the NFR finals twice, but he’d never taken home a winner’s buckle. And after his wreck and the off-season, his big-purse cushion was as thin as a dollar store seat pad.

He had no future plans. No future career. No future. Why hadn’t he thought about this before? Oh yeah. Because he’d been an ass. An image flashed of a much older him, sitting outside the bar in Banderas, drinking beers and boring younger men with tired old wannabe-champion bull rider stories. A shudder rattled down his spine. He wasn’t anywhere near that pathetic yet, but he had no doubt that lay at the end of the road he was on.

What did he want for a future?

Another picture flashed. This one had auburn curls, sea-green eyes and a pissed-off lip-curl. He always did go for feisty women. Wait, didn’t that make him the horndog bull rider? Maybe, but he wasn’t saying it out loud. Hard enough to rope in his mouth without trying to tie down his brain, too.

But he’d let Harper down, in more ways than she’d admitted today. It had to have hurt, his ignoring her after she’d given him her virginity. She thought him an ass. Hell, he was an ass. But a reforming one. Maybe if he made things right, put on that rodeo like he’d promised, he could detoxify a bunch of his bad Karma all at once.

And just maybe she’d give him a chance to show her that he was a better man than the one she’d met last season.

He pulled a pen from his pocket, grabbed a wad of cocktail napkins from the waitress’s station, and scribbled down ideas.

A half hour later, he cruised the area around the campus of UTEP in Ace’s truck, trying to remember the exact street where he’d dropped off Harper at her parent’s business last year. It was the only address he had for her. Shame burned. Hell, he’d left town without even knowing her name. He squinted at the quaint old brick buildings in the shadows of street lamp circles. It had to be here somewhere—Bingo.

The sign wasn’t lit, but yellow light spilled from the windows onto the sidewalk. He cruised by, slow, checking to be sure her father wasn’t the one working late. He didn’t want stereo goose eggs. Any bruises he accumulated needed to be from collecting money and finals points. He couldn’t see anyone inside, so he parked the truck, hopped out and walked to the door.

He peered in the window. The room was a huge kitchen, except for the tiny waiting area in front of a wall-to-wall glass case full of display wedding cakes. Harper stepped out of a door on the right held open with a chair, arms loaded with metal cookie trays.

He tried the door and finding it locked, knocked on the glass.

She bobbled the trays, then slid them onto a huge butcher block table and put a hand over her heart. She frowned at the door, wiped her hands on the chef’s apron that covered her from collar to mid-shin, but her arms were bare. She strode for the door and unlocked it, but only opened it a crack. “What do you want now?”

His heart thumped heavy in his chest. “To make things right.” Sweat trickled down his collar, following the knobs of his spine to the waistband of his jeans. “Seriously.”

Her face was flushed, tendrils of copper trailed from a messy knot on top of her head, a pencil thrust through it. She studied his face, reading it.

That feeling was back—like more rode on this than him redeeming Karma. “Harper, this means a lot to me. Please?”

After a few tolling seconds, she pulled the door open. “I’ll let you in, but it’s going to cost you. I’m making cookies. You get to help.”

He walked by her, scrubbing his palms together. “Oh, I’m good at cookies.”

She followed him behind the display cases. “I’m talking making, not eating.”

He picked up a rolling pin on the four-strewn butcher block table. “I have many talents you don’t know about.”

She took the pin from him. “Wash your hands, you Cro-Magnon. Jeez.”

“Oh. Okay.” He crossed to the deep sinks beside an industrial dishwasher on the back wall. “I thought you were a teacher on the Rez. Why are you working here?”

“I help my parents on busy weekends. And a rodeo weekend is the busiest.”

When he returned, she was rolling dough. “You can cut them out. The cutters are there,” she pointed with the rolling pin, “then just put them on one of those cookie sheets.”

“I can do that.” He stepped next to her at the table, chose a cutter, and went to work. “I came to talk to you about the Rodeo on the Rez.”

“There is no, Rodeo on the Rez.”

“Yeah, but there will be. The guys won’t want to take a chance of getting hurt before the finals, so I thought we could have it after. Give ‘em about a month to rest up, and miss riding again.” He reached in his back pocket and dropped the napkins on the table. “I roughed out the idea, here.”

“Oh no, cowboy. Fool me once—”

“No fooling. I’m serious. Let me make this up to you.”

“Why?” She studied him like he was a puzzle she was working.

“I’ve made mistakes. I’ve got bad Karma to make up for.”

“Oh, I should have known. This is all about you then.”

“No, it’s not. This could be good for the tribe, too. We could raise a bunch of money for . . . what did you want to raise it for again?”

She rolled her eyes heavenward and moved her lips.

“Just give me another chance, Harper. I swear I won’t let you down this time.” He pulled his cell from the pocket of his shirt. “Give me your number. I’ll put it in my contacts and you can text or call me anytime. You can yell at me anytime I don’t do what I say I’m going to.”

She squinted up at him. “You swear on your favorite bull rope?”

He winced. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but yeah, I’m dead serious.”

“Okay. I believe you.” She put the pin down. “Now all you have to do is convince the Tribal Council.”

“What? No way.” Telling her he was sorry was one thing, but apologizing to a bunch of Indians? Not happening.

She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “So much for commitment.”

Shit. He remembered the dusty decay of the Rez from his past. The hotshot of panic it touched off in him. “You don’t understand. I can’t.”

“Won’t, you mean.” Her look was careless and cool. She was shutting him out.

He was so blowing this. Life was simpler before he’d picked up that damned book. He was going back to the hotel and burning it. “Harper?”

“What?” Two lines formed between eyes that looked like they really didn’t want to know what came next.

“I’m sorry.” He shifted his weight, and slid his fingers into his back pockets. “For everything. No, not all of it. Parts of it were downright magnificent.” Shutupshutupshutup. “I’m putting this all wrong. See—”

“Will you please stop saying you’re sorry? At least about the virginity part.” She took a half-hearted swipe at the dough with the rolling pin. “I wanted it as much as you did.”

“But why? You didn’t know me from Bubba. I’m just a bull rider, but even I can see that you’re not the kind of girl to get picked up in a bar.”

She focused on the table.

“I mean, you’re pretty, and what, twenty?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Even crazier. Why were you still . . . you know.”

“You don’t know what it’s like.” She attacked the dough with the rolling pin. “El Paso may look big from the outside, but when you grow up here it’s a pretty small town. I’m a teacher. I’ve got a reputation to uphold. If I had sex with a local guy it’d either be all over town, or I’d have some guy on the back stoop asking my Daddy for my hand.” The muscles in her arms flexed, pushing the dough. “I’m not interested in either of those scenarios. So, it had to be a stranger.”

He tightened his lips to hold in the smile. “What you’re saying is, you used me?”

“Yeah, I did.” She stopped pushing the pin, but didn’t look up. “I’m sorry.”

He fell out laughing, long and hard, until he had to lean on the table for support. Wiping his eyes, he caught her glare, pin raised like a weapon.

“I don’t see why that’s so funny.”

“I’m laughing at me. I know a bunch of people who’d give me shit about that if they knew.”

She didn’t even crack a smile. “Okay then, we’re even. We’ve both said we’re sorry.” She dusted her hands. “Come on, I’ll let you out.”

There had to be some way to make it okay, without going out to the Rez. He trailed her to the door. “Be sure you lock up behind me.”

She pulled the door open, but he just stood looking into her deep green eyes. They trapped him in a warm riptide that matched the emotions surging in his chest. He took her face in his hands, lowered his lips to hers, and let the tide pull him under. Her scent was distantly familiar: vanilla and some sweet spice. He was shocked that in spite of her tearing off his bark the past hour, her body melted into his like warmed butter. She made a tiny chirp of desire in the back of her throat.

All his blood drained to Mr. Johnson, leaving Stead lightheaded. He made himself stop much sooner than he wanted, letting her go with a last nip of her bottom lip. “You are sweeter than those sugar cookies, pretty girl. Oh, and just so you know,” he stepped through the door and looked back, “you and I are nowhere near done.” He’d left flour handprints on the sides of her face, and her flush was transitioning to flustered. Time to go.

* * *

He woke to Gary Allen’s, ‘Get Off on the Pain’, his phone alarm tune. He rolled over to see Ace sitting on the edge of his bed in his tighty-whities, scratching his head. “What time did you get in last night?”

“Hell, I dunno. Three?”

“Ah, finally talked that blonde into your lap, didya?”

Ace puffed out his hairy chest. “As if there was any doubt. Where did you disappear to?”

“Had to see about a girl.”

“Hell, there were a bunch of girls in that bar. You could ‘a had your pick.”

Stead remembered Harper leaning over him yesterday, all worried because her father had punched him out. A solid chunk of rightness settled into a corner of his mind. “Not like this one.”

“Good. It’s been so long since you been with a woman, I was starting to think you’d taken your bat over to the other team.”

“Shut the hell up and get in the shower. I’ll buy you breakfast. Wimps gotta keep their strength up.”

Ace stood up. And up. He’d always been big for his age, even when they were kids. The excuse Ace had gotten when he’d been rejected for adoption had been that he’d eat too much. The excuses Stead got weren’t as polite. That shared kick in the teeth had bound them together, then, and still. He was Ace’s only friend, and vice versa.

“Yeah, I’m going. Bring your wallet to breakfast, cuz I’m ordering one of everything on the menu.”

While Ace showered, Stead lay back, thinking. Harper was special. He didn’t know how he knew it, but when he’d seen her yesterday it was like when he’d seen that yellow cover on the sale book rack. That kind of special. That change-your-life kind of special.

Besides, if he was going to keep his promises, it meant the hard pieces as well as the easy ones. His guts did a belly roll and he winced at the ceiling. Shit. He was going to have to go out to the Rez.