Chapter Three
Kristen decided to wait until Sunday to call her parents, a time when her dad wasn’t on shift at the hospital and her mother wasn’t busy with her many volunteer projects. That way she could talk to them together. Of course, she would call Whitney first—test the waters. Endure twin wrath, because Whit was not going to be happy.
She woke up feeling edgy and out of sorts, but told herself she’d feel better once this was all behind her. She was not a secret keeper. Should have never tried. Now she would be free of her secret, so maybe meeting Austin in the Silver Bow hadn’t been the worst thing in the world.
No. It had been.
She could have gone a long time without facing off with the man, and damn him for still being sexy. Kristen was certain that she’d dreamed about him that night, though she couldn’t remember anything specific. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. Austin had haunted her dreams and her fantasy life during high school, leaving her feeling frustrated and confused. Irritated with herself.
She’d had big plans, which meant she had no business being attracted to a guy with no goals. A guy who didn’t care about his future enough to regularly attend classes. A charismatic risk taker who didn’t follow strict plans or fit into a neat box—both of which characterized her life. Strict plans. Neat boxes.
But what if he changed? What if he became more serious? Noticed her? Liked her?
Changed for her.
Her knack for mathematics told her that the odds were not in her favor, even if he had talked to her a time or two, and helped her with spilled papers in the hall. After the paper incident, her Austin awareness had intensified, as had the guilt for being attracted to him in the first place. He was not her type, didn’t fit into her world…but she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
The push and pull continued throughout their senior year, right up until one of her friends had announced that Austin had called her an ice princess—he was asking her to prom to see if he could melt her.
Melt her.
There was no mistaking what her friends thought “melting” entailed, and she’d been beyond embarrassed thinking about Austin laughing about her with his friends. Had he figured out that he was the object of her fantasies? Was he ridiculing her?
In the face of that horror, Kristen had done the only thing she could and sent her message via the Marietta School grapevine, which had done its work in its usual efficient fashion. Austin was a loser and she wanted nothing to do with him. Thus, the face-off and thus the most mortifying moment of her life.
Thank you, Austin.
Five hours later, Kristen parked her roommate’s car in her usual spot and headed for the rear entrance of the casino, where she and Austin had their uncomfortable confrontation the night before. Her first indication that something was wrong was when Deke glanced down instead of making eye contact as she walked past his office on her way to punch in. The second was when Hanna, her manager, came into the staff room and told her not to bother changing from her flats into her torturous bootie shoes.
Kristen blinked at her. “Is there a problem?”
Hanna gave a slow nod. “This isn’t working, Kristen.” There was no note of apology in her voice. She was stating a fact.
“I don’t understand.” She was only six days into her probationary two weeks.
“When there’s an issue with a customer, your options are to either see me to resolve it, or to muscle through. That is a non-negotiable. Yesterday, you did neither. You ignored the table until they left, which tells me that you either don’t understand, or don’t care about, customer protocol and the reputation of the Silver Bow Casino.”
“It was one incident.”
Hanna’s mouth tightened. “It’s more than that. You aren’t comfortable with the customers, Kristen. It shows.”
“I’m polite with all the customers.”
“You’re distant. You don’t smile.” Hanna spoke as if that were a major crime.
Maybe she didn’t smile as much as she should, but she wasn’t unpleasant. She was trying to smile. “I’ll improve if you give me another chance.” She’d smile her butt off, even at the people who said rude things to her if it kept a paycheck coming in.
Hanna gave her a weary look. “I don’t see this getting better, and it’s not fair to the rest of the staff to keep you on the off chance it will. I need to hire someone suited to the position sooner rather than later. HR has already been informed and will mail you your final check.”
She hadn’t even gotten a first check.
“Hanna…”
“I’m sorry, Kristen. Gather your things. Deke will make certain you get out of the building okay.” As if leaving the building okay was an issue. He was going to make certain she left without making a scene.
Feeling numb, Kristen shouldered her tote bag and followed Hanna out of the staff room. Deke was waiting at the hallway leading to the parking lot entrance, hands on his utility belt.
“You’re lucky,” he said in a low voice as she passed in front of him. “The last girl they let go, they did it at the end of her shift.”
“At least she got the shift.” Kristen’s stomach was so tight she thought she was going to puke.
“This isn’t the right job for you.”
“Obviously.” But it had been a job.
As she pushed her way out through the exit, she barely held back the tears. She was a flat-out failure. More than that, she was a double failure.
The heavy metal door shut behind her and there she was. Alone in a parking lot. No job. No future. She closed her eyes, pulled in a long breath. Her tote bag felt heavy on her shoulder. Hell, the world felt heavy on her shoulders.
She didn’t know what to do. Her reserves were shot. Her savings were low. Her grapevine was dried and withered. She’d pulled in what had seemed like her last favor to get this job and now she had no job.
Was she going to have to go home and sponge off her family until she got back on her feet? That hurt. A lot.
And she’d have to ship her stuff home—not that she had a lot that wasn’t in storage, but there was more than she could fit into a couple of suitcases. Maybe she could rent a truck.
A quick internet search after she’d gotten into her borrowed car told her no, she would not be doing that.
Not without calling Whitney and asking for a loan. And explaining why she needed it. That would be a painful talk. Things had been stilted between them the last couple of times they’d spoken. Her sister knew that something was off, but Kristen had stonewalled. Told her everything was fine. She’d been over three weeks into unemployment at that point and certain she’d land a new job soon.
Yeah. That had really worked out.
As soon as she got home, Kristen called her sister. Confessed everything. Whitney did not take the news well.
“Now wait…one more time. You’ve been out of work for how long?”
Kristen pressed her palm to her forehead. The call was as painful as she’d predicted—maybe more so—because her sister was just this side of livid. She’d explained about taking an interim job, and about how she’d run into Austin, but Whitney was bypassing all that and latching on to the fact that her closest relative in the world hadn’t poured out her troubles as she’d gone through them.
“Whit…you guys were dealing with Dad’s accident and I thought I was going to land a job in no time.”
“And when that didn’t happen? When Dad got better and the weeks stretched on?”
“It felt like it was too late to confess.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d lied by omission for too long,” Kristen blurted. “Surely you can understand that?”
“No. I don’t think that I can. It’s…unacceptable.” Whitney let out an audible sigh. “I would have told you!”
“You don’t know that.” Because a year ago, Kristen never would have seen herself doing what she’d done.
“Yeah. I do. Because you’re my sister and I’d damned well be asking you for help if I got into a bind.”
“You know that for sure?”
“I do.”
They could argue about what Whitney may or may not have done all day, so Kristen pushed on to her main source of worry. “I don’t know how to tell Mom.”
“Well, you’d better think of something.” The words practically spit sparks.
“Whitney—”
“I can’t help it. I’m pissed.”
“I’m coming home.” She had to talk to her mom face to face and, like it or not, she needed sanctuary. She needed the safety of home.
“You do that. I’ll lie to Mom until you get here.”
“Damn it, Whit—”
“No. You don’t get a ‘damn it’. And you don’t get to be angry. You get to eat humble pie and get your ass home.”
Now Kristen sighed. “I will.”
“Let me know when you leave…and how you’re traveling. I want dates and times.”
Those were orders. “Yes.” Whit still felt protective, but she wasn’t going to make things easier for her. Not until she cooled down anyway. That worked, because Kristen didn’t want things easy. She felt like crap and she needed to pay some penance.
The connection ended and Kristen found herself holding a dead phone to her ear.
One enraged sister to deal with when she got home. To be followed by trusting parents, who would be no happier to have been kept in the dark than Whit had been.
It’s your life. You’re an adult.
True, but she hadn’t acted like one. Now she needed to go home, do damage control. Get her life back on track…somehow.
The bus schedule was a nightmare. The ticket cost close to two hundred dollars, which she didn’t have because the Silver Bow hadn’t paid her yet, and the trip took forty-three hours. She could get as far as Butte in twenty-three hours, and then she had to wait twenty hours to transfer to another bus for the three-hour trip to Marietta.
That made a hell of a lot of sense.
Who did she know in Butte who might give her a ride to Marietta? She’d lost contact with her old friends during the years she’d been to college and started her job. Most of her closest friends were off conquering worlds in far-flung cities. And they probably still had jobs.
“I tallied it up.” Her roommate, Lynn, came out of her bedroom and set a paper on the table. “I’m sorry you’re paying for next month’s rent, but it’s too late to get someone else and you know I can’t swing this alone.”
Kristen didn’t expect her to.
“That’s okay. I need a place to keep my stuff until I make arrangements to take it…somewhere.” Presumably back home.
“I’ll prorate the rent if things move faster.” Lynn was trying hard to help and Kristen appreciated the feeling of support.
Kristen worked up a smile. “You’ve been great. I wouldn’t have been able to work for six whole days if you hadn’t lent me your car.”
Lynn smiled back and reached out to touch Kristen’s arm, which brought her close to breaking point. She was going home with her tail between her legs, to make peace with her sister and to confess to her parents. The winner was going home a loser. She’d made one poor decision after another after being laid off and it had all caught up with her.
“How did things go with your sister?”
“Not good. And I can’t blame her. I broke trust. Now I need to smooth the waters. In person.”
“You’re going home now?”
“I…think I’d better. For the sake of family relations.” And her finances. She couldn’t keep living in the city.
“If you can’t make it back before the end of May, Jason and I will pack up for you. Take your stuff to storage.”
“I’ll make it back.” She had almost forty days to figure out what to do with the storage warehouse full of the furniture she’d bought during what she now thought of as ‘the good times’—the time when she was employed. She could probably borrow a truck and trailer from her Marvell cousins and put things in storage on their ranch. Or she could sell it, but that would take time.
Lynn took a seat on the other side of the table, moving aside the vase of colored daisies to make room for her elbows. The flowers, coupled with the golden glow of the setting sun slanting in through the blinds, made the apartment feel warm and cheery—the antithesis of Kristen’s life. “How are you getting home?” Lynn asked.
“The bus.” She explained the trip without mentioning the part where she was going to use the last of her available cash for the ticket, focusing instead on the ridiculous twenty-hour layover, which she’d probably end up enduring, to pay penance, if nothing else.
“Your sister won’t pick you up?”
“I’m, uh, kind of afraid to ask.”
“And there’s no other way?”
There was probably a way. There was always a way, if one looked hard enough. Someone who could help without being put out.
Someone who could help.
Austin.
Bad idea. Very bad idea.
He’d offered to help… Had he meant it?
Even if he had, she’d tossed his offer right back at him. Would he want to help now?
Would it hurt to ask?
According to the American Extreme Bull Riders schedule, he was going to Salt Lake City for his next tour stop. Maybe…
Kristen pulled out her phone and pulled up a search engine. There was a small touring bus line that ran a route from SLC to Livingston, passing through Marietta on its way. It was called Montana…something.
Montana Vista Tour Line.
And the ticket was a quarter of the cost of the other ticket. Almost affordable.
“Do you have an idea?” Lynn asked.
Kristen looked up from her phone. “I might.” What in the world did she have to lose by asking Austin for a lift to Salt Lake? Her pride? She’d dropped that along the wayside when she’d climbed into that saloon girl outfit and pasted a fake smile on her face for money.
And maybe she owed Austin some penance, too.
He probably thought so.
“I ran into a hometown acquaintance at the casino yesterday. He’s going to Salt Lake City soon. He might be able to help me out.”
“Ask him,” Lynn said with an encouraging smile. “What would it hurt?”
“Right. I’ll ask him,” Kristen said. Why not? All it would take was exactly what her sister had suggested—a huge portion of humble pie.
*
Austin smiled at his last signee, a kid in his early teens, dressed in beat-up cowboy boots and jeans and a brand new American Extreme Bull Riders ball cap. It’d been a busy signing day for his sponsor—a couple of hours at the local Boot Barn that afternoon, and then an hour on the concourse before the big event. Now it was get-into-his-head time.
“Austin.”
His back stiffened at the sound of the familiar voice. Son of a bitch. Really?
He turned to find Kristen Alexander walking toward him across the concourse, wearing worn jeans and an oversized Nevada Wolf Pack sweatshirt. She slowed as she approached, looking both determined and nervous.
“You want an autograph?” he asked as she came to a stop a few feet away from him.
“I have nothing to sign.” She pushed her long reddish-brown hair over her shoulder, looking patently self-conscious. Had she come to apologize? To ask him once again to keep his mouth shut?
“That doesn’t slow a lot of women down.” He’d been asked to sign some interesting things…and places.
She caught his meaning, tipped up her chin. “Thank you. I don’t need an autograph.”
He shifted his weight onto his good hip, folded his arms over his chest. Basically took on his in-your-face bull rider stance. “What do you need?”
“I need a ride to Salt Lake City.”
Not anything close to what he’d been expecting. “Why?”
“I got fired. Again.” The words barely made it out of her mouth before she pressed it tightly shut again and swallowed. She was going to cry. If it had been anyone else, he would have been more affected. She blinked a few times and managed to regain her composure. “I need to go home.”
“You’re asking me for a ride?” She had to be borderline desperate.
“To Salt Lake City.”
“Then what? Hitchhike?”
“I have enough money to take the Montana Vista Tour bus from Salt Lake to Marietta.”
Enough money for a bus? “Fuck, Kristen. Are things that bad?”
“They aren’t good.” She closed her mouth as a couple of security guards walked by.
He took her by the arm and led her behind a wide concrete column. “Maybe you can give me a little more information.”
Kristen glanced down at the floor for a brief moment, then met his gaze dead on. “I lost my job over two months ago. I didn’t tell the family because I thought I’d get another fast. I told Whitney this morning. Now I need to tell my mom. I want to do it face to face.”
“You weren’t moonlighting as a cocktail waitress.”
“No.” She held his gaze, her expression bordering on defiant as she said, “That was my job—the only one I could get that paid enough to allow me to live and not default on loans. I sold my car, but it was old and I barely got anything for it. Enough for a month’s rent and some groceries.”
It took him a moment to process all that she’d just confessed.
“I’m asking you for help.” Which he’d offered her in a moment of weakness. “And I understand if you don’t want to give it.”
He leaned his shoulder against the concrete pillar. In a few hours, his name would be called and he’d walk through smoke and fire to his appointed spot and the crowd would cheer, because he did something that most people couldn’t do. He faced a ton of raging bovine week after week and came out alive. Surely he could get through this.
“Yeah. I’ll take you to Salt Lake. But it won’t be a direct trip.”
“Meaning?”
“I have a stop along the way.” He glanced past her to the center arena where the crews were setting up. “I have to get taped up. We can discuss details later. Are you staying for the performance?”
“I can’t afford it. I had to sidestep security to get in to talk to you.”
“You…” Sidestepped security? “Never mind.” He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out one of the two passes he had for special guests. “Meet me at the north exit door after the event is over.”
She gave a short nod. “I will.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you. And…I want to apologize for the things I said to you…that day…in high school.”
“Did you mean them?”
She pressed her lips together briefly. “I was…wrong.”
“Well, I guess life has a way of sorting out the real winners and losers.”
He smiled a not very friendly smile, then turned and headed down the concrete steps to the change room.