Chapter 4

THE academy owed me an award. The only time I wasn‘t acting in the following twenty-four hours was when I was in bed with Rand. There, with him, I was stripped naked both literally and emotionally, and all I could do was come apart under him. But from the time I got back to the table, before we hit the sheets, and then afterward, I was on stage. When I kissed Rand goodbye Thursday morning, waving from the porch at him and Brent and Emily—they had signed up to be guests at Zach‘s ranch— telling them all to be safe, smiling like an idiot until I couldn‘t see the car anymore, I felt like there should have been applause. It had been a truly amazing performance.

A half an hour after Rand left, Mac Chapman, Rand‘s foreman and the one guy on the ranch who had never warmed to me, stepped onto the porch.

“What?” he asked irritably.

I had called his cell phone, and he had ridden in from where he had been supervising some fence mending, to speak to me.

“I need help,” I said from where I was sitting on the rail.

He sneered at me, and I was suddenly just done. I could hire some men when I got there. Fuck it.

“Forget it.” I shook my head, starting for the door. “Sorry to bother you.”

He caught my arm, fingers tight around my bicep as he stopped me. “What is it?”

“Nothing, lemme go.”

“Just tell me.”

“You‘re a dick.”

“That ain‘t news.” He squinted at me. “Now what is it?”

“Rand‘s gonna lose the grazing rights in King if we don‘t show up at a rodeo.”

“I‘m sorry, what?”

I eased free of his grip and explained what was going on. He followed me into the house, and I passed him everything Katie Beal had sent me the previous evening, all the paperwork I had printed out.

“Does Rand know?” Mac asked me, his eyes flicking to mine.

“No.”

He nodded. “Good. It would only eat at his gut all weekend.”

“But I can go,” I told him. “I own half of the Red.”

“You do?”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Yeah, asshole, I do, so maybe you should think about not being a total douche to me all the time.”

The squint was back, and for the first time ever, I laughed at him.

I was stunned a second later when I got a very slight curl of his lip. I had no idea that Mac Chapman could smile. I had never seen him do it before. The man had never warmed up to me. I had initially thought it was because I was gay, but it turned out that he thought I was going to leave Rand. He thought I would get bored with life on the ranch and that his boss, who was now happy and content and smiling, would go back to how he was before I took up residence in his home. No one wanted Rand breathing fire, impossible to please, and micromanaging them. They liked him how he was now. Mac, more than anyone, liked his boss as far away from him on a daily basis as possible. He liked that I wanted to help, and for the first time since I‘d met the man, he talked to me like I wasn‘t absolutely stupid. It was a nice change.

“There are seven events at the rodeo. I‘m sending six men with you and eight horses, two extra just in case you need them. You should take that fool dog of yours, too, as well as that mare Rand gave you since she‘s the only horse you know how to ride. I expect my stock returned in the same condition they left in. You hear me?” “Yessir.” I nodded, turning to leave.

“We‘re all gonna have hell to pay when he finds out about this,

Stef.”

“I know.” I nodded. “Give me a better plan.” He just looked at my face.

“See?”

Two hours later—why we were leaving so early I had no idea—I was driving a huge pickup truck with double wheels off the ranch with Everett sitting beside me in the cab, and Dusty stretched out behind me with Bella laying on the seat next to him. Pierce, Tom, Chase, and Chris were in the pickup behind me.

“You look stupid.”

I turned my head to look at Everett. “Pardon me?”

“I don‘t think I‘ve ever seen anyone who looked less like he should be wearing a cowboy hat and boots than you.”

The worn brown cowboy hat I had on my head had been a gift from Rand as had the boots that were on my feet. While I wasn‘t entirely comfortable, fitting in was key. I did not want anyone to second-guess my right to be there.

“So what was your plan for this thing if Mac hadn‘t talked us all into it?”

“I dunno,” I sighed. “I was thinking of calling Mitch Powell and seeing who he could maybe pay to go with me, and then I would have to pay him back.”

My hat was pulled off fast, I got a quick slap across the top of my head, and then the hat was shoved back down hard. It took only seconds, but it stung like mad.

“Shit, Dusty,” I groused at him, lifting my right hand to rub where it hurt.

The motion sent my hat down over my aviator sunglasses and my eyes. But Everett was there to slap my hand away and knock the hat back.

“Try an‘ keep your eyes on the damn road, all right?”

“I would if people weren‘t hit––”

“You never go off the ranch for help,” Dusty scolded me. “Never.”

“Never,” Everett echoed him. “We take care of our own.”

“But I‘m not one of you guys,” I told them. “You all respect and care for Rand, not me.”

“You don‘t give yourself no credit,” Dusty assured me. “Without you knowing about finances and such, Rand would not be making all the money he is.”

“That‘s not true,” I assured them. “Rand is a very smart business––”

“And if Rand didn‘t wanna make a home for you, then he wouldn‘t be fixin‘ to make all the changes in Hillman.” That part was probably true.

“Before you was here,” Dusty chimed in, “Rand Holloway was a

prick.”

I wasn‘t touching that one with a ten foot pole.

“Well said,” Everett cackled.

“But since you been on the ranch, I can stand to talk to him for more than five minutes.”

Everett was laughing.

I smiled, seating the hat on my head as Dusty yelled at Bella to quit moving. We all laughed as she muscled him out of the way, all seventy pounds of dog taking up position so she, instead of Dusty, was behind me. She put her head on the back of my seat to the left, and I felt her warm breath whuffling on my cheek before her tongue got my ear.

“Bell,” I griped, wiping it off, reaching back to scratch under her chin.

“She‘s worried I‘m gonna hit ya ag‘in.” Dusty chuckled. “I ain‘t never seen a dog more protective. It‘s sweet.”

As she nuzzled the side of my neck, I had to agree.

We stopped for lunch and then again for dinner, and after we fed and watered the horses, took them out, walked them a bit, and then got them back in the trailers, we were back on our way. We reached Truscott just after midnight, and I was thrilled to see the area awash with lights. I left Chase in charge, and took Dusty and Everett with me to register.

The trailer for participants was clearly marked, and when we reached the front of the line, I gave the man sitting at the table the name of the ranch.

“Red Diamond,” I said.

There were three people there, two women and the one man, and his head snapped up to look at me.

“We were told that the Red Diamond was not participating this year.”

“Then you were misinformed, sir,” I told him.

“Well, I‘m so pleased.” He smiled and fished through a stack of manila envelopes in front of him. “Oh, I see it here now. You spoke to Katie.”

“Yessir.”

“Are you….” He squinted at the printout he had pulled from the envelope. “Steven Joss?”

“It‘s Stefan, but yes.”

“Wonderful.” He smiled up at me and seemed genuinely pleased. “We were worried that the Red Diamond was going to give us a miss this year just like the two years prior.”

“And we‘re sorry about that,” Everett chimed in. “And I assure you, sir, that we will never miss another.”

The man extended his hand to me. “I‘m Hud Lawrence, and may I say that this is just about the best piece of news I‘ve had all week,” he told me as we shook. He grasped Everett‘s hand after mine and then Dusty‘s. “Lots of folks come out just to see you all. This rodeo is mostly a small community one ‘cept for you folks, and it‘s a treat to see your stock. I‘ve got to give Gil Landry a call and tell him that you all showed up. I know he was lookin‘ forward to competing if you were fixin‘ to be here.”

I nodded, accepted the registration packet from Hud, wrote the man a check for seven hundred dollars, a hundred per event, and stepped back so Everett could give him the names of who was participating and in what. Dusty chatted with the two women at the table, had them laughing with him in minutes, so charming with his big blue eyes and dimples, and was getting the gossip as Hud typed information into his laptop. Once everything was signed—release of liability forms, insurance forms—our numbers given to us, and directions to our trailer, stable and corral to work our horses, we thanked him and the two women and headed back to the others.

“Who is Gil whoever?” I asked Everett.

“He‘s a rancher here,” he answered, irritable suddenly. “He and

Rand have a kind of—I dunno, strange sort of rivalry goin‘ on. I don‘t really get it. They‘re friends, but they ain‘t. I‘m not sure how to describe it.”

“He hates Rand,” Dusty told me. “That‘s how you describe it.”

“But not all the time. He only hates Rand sometimes.”

“Well, I‘m sure he‘s gonna be disappointed that Rand‘s not here.” “Most likely,” Everett agreed, but the look on his face was odd.

Everett Hartline was a strange man. He was absolutely dangerous and unpredictable, and his temper was horrible. He was also extremely loyal and very protective of his home, which was Rand‘s ranch. I liked it best when he wasn‘t armed. When he and Chris took their rifles at night to check on the borders of the ranch, I got nervous.

“Something you‘re not telling me?”

He shook his shaggy head, the light brown hair, streaked gold from the sun, falling into his dark blue eyes. No one would ever say that Everett was handsome, but once you saw his face, you never forgot it. He reminded me of the pictures of the cowboys from the Old West—rugged, hard, and tanned from living their lives outdoors. There was no trace of gentleness in the man, no softness, just mean edges that I never wanted to be on the wrong side of. He scared me just a little.

“So do you guys all know what events you‘re gonna do?” I asked him.

He smiled barely. “It‘s nice to hear you ask. Rand don‘t ever ask.”

“‘Cause he knows what all your strengths are,” I sighed deeply, passing him the packet with all the numbers in it. “I‘m just along for the ride.”

“You‘re more than that,” he said as we reached the others.

As they all started deciding who was going to do what, I yelled over that I was going to bed. No one heard me, but it didn‘t matter.

There were two trailers, and they each slept four so there was more than enough room. Once I was changed and under the covers, taking the bunk at the back, I took pity on the dog looking up at me like she was dying.

“Get in the bed,” I told her.

She was up and tucked down on the other side of me, head on my hip with a happy whimper, seconds later. I didn‘t hear the others come in.