Chapter 14

Tori had just finished saddling her horse, still chewing over what the hell Delon meant with that crack about how she didn’t know him, when an ancient pickup roared into her driveway. Shawnee’s rig was straight out of an old cowboy cartoon—rusty, dented, what paint was left faded to an indefinable shade of green. The equally decrepit stock trailer had plywood wired onto the wooden slats on the sides to give the horse some protection from the elements, and a rope tied around the end gate to hold it shut.

The pickup engine died with a sputter and a cough. Shawnee stepped out of the cab, planted her hands on her hips, and gave Tori’s front yard a long once-over. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

“My curb appeal dropped ten points when you parked that thing in the driveway,” Tori shot back.

Shawnee shrugged. “It’s not the rig that counts, it’s what you’re haulin’.”

For which Tori had no answer because Willy had always said the same thing. She jerked a thumb toward the arena. “I’m going to gather the steers. Come on back when you’re ready.”

“I’m so ready I could damn near wet myself,” Shawnee drawled. “Lead the way, Princess.”

Tori opened her mouth, then snapped it shut when Fudge whinnied right in her ear. She tugged on the reins when he craned his neck to gaze longingly at Shawnee’s trailer. “Don’t go getting attached,” she hissed. “They are not our friends.”

Behind them, Shawnee hacked out a laugh.

Neither spoke as they warmed up, the rapidly cooling air inside the arena still except for the sound of muffled hoofbeats and creaking leather as they readied ropes, pulled on gloves, and tightened cinches. Shawnee rode into the heeling box on the right side, grabbed a lever to open the rear gate, and pushed the first steer into the chute.

Tori built a loop and tucked it under her arm, willing away the tension in her muscles. “I need to take my time on the first few, make sure my horse is working right.”

“Whatever.”

Tori backed Fudge into the box. Shawnee did the same with her buckskin, her right thumb on the electric release button for the chute. Tori scraped up her scattered thoughts, rolled them into a ball, and chucked it over her shoulder. The game was the same no matter who was sitting over there in the heeling box. Rope the steer, turn the steer. Keep it simple. Isn’t that what Willy had told her a hundred times?

Don’t miss, don’t miss, don’t miss…

She squashed the desperate little whisper and focused on her target at the base of the steer’s horns. She nodded her head.

The gate banged open and Fudge launched from the corner, smooth as silk. She rode him into perfect position, then kept him there while she took two more swings and threw, acutely aware of Shawnee on the other side of the steer. The loop curled around the right horn but above the left. Tori let it lie and the rope dropped down and over the steer’s nose. She ripped the slack out and the loop came snug. Half a head. Sloppy, but legal. She wrapped the end of her rope around the saddle horn and went left.

Shawnee’s horse swooped in behind, her loop curling around the steer’s hind legs almost before he’d completed the turn, scooping up both feet. As she dallied, Fudge swung around to face the steer stretched between them.

“How was that?” Tori asked, then winced, because she sounded like a rookie who’d just turned her first steer. “Uh, the handle, I mean. How do you like them turned?”

Shawnee released her rope with a wide, leering grin. “Just like sex. Hard and fast, and don’t worry about the rope burns.”

Which made Tori think of Delon, and damned if she didn’t blush from head to toe, but in some weird way, the crude joke snapped the shimmering line of tension between her shoulder blades. She roped a dozen steers without a miss, her loop more sure with every throw. Shawnee snatched at least one rear foot out of the dirt every time and two on the majority.

Tori retrieved her rope and released the last steer from the stripping chute, then chased the herd up the return alley. As Shawnee pushed them on into the chute, Tori patted Fudge on the neck, waiting. For applause, she realized with disgust. “Wow, you’ve really improved!” or “Way to go!” Even “Hot damn, Princess, who knew you could actually rope?”

Shawnee said nothing. Just loaded a steer into the chute, got on her horse, and backed in the box, ready for more. Well, fine. Silence was good. From Shawnee, silence was a miracle. Tori ran Fudge up on the next steer, took a couple of extra swings, then roped the horns clean before taking the steer left and looking back to watch her heeler. Shawnee wasn’t there.

Alarmed, Tori released her dallies and let the steer go. She wheeled Fudge around and saw Shawnee parked ten strides in front of the roping chute. “What’s wrong?”

Shawnee fisted her hand around her loop and propped it on her hip. “You are aware that this is a timed event?”

“Yes.”

“So what the fuck are you doing clear down there, when you had a perfectly good throw right here?”

Tori felt herself flush. “I just wanted to be sure—”

“How sure do you have to be? Geezus, woman. I’ve been on shorter cattle drives.” Shawnee stepped off and used the heel of her boot to scrape a line across the arena, twenty yards from the front of the chute. “Me and Roy go this far. You rope ’em after that, you’re on your own.”

Tori’s teeth snapped together with an audible click. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Shawnee echoed, and got back on her horse.

Except it wasn’t. On the first steer, Tori took three swings and drilled her loop square into the back of his neck. The next loop spun around the right horn and off. And the next floated like a Frisbee over the steer’s head.

Tori cursed and pulled up, coiling her rope in quick jerks. Why was she pushing so hard? Hadn’t Willy taught her consistency was more important than speed? “I can’t do this.”

“You can’t do it yet.”

Tori set her jaw. “Willy always said if I turned every steer, I’d be in the money more often than not.”

“That’s real sweet.” Shawnee’s smile was as condescending as the words. “But Roy and I don’t practice to win the little checks. If you’re gonna rope with me, you gotta turn ’em for first place.”

Tori stared at her, stunned at the utter gall. As if Shawnee was doing her a favor by showing up to use her arena and rope her steers. “Then maybe you should practice with someone else.”

“Your choice.” Shawnee dropped her loop, coiled up her rope, and turned to ride away. “If you don’t figure you’ve got the cojones…”

It was such a juvenile dare Tori laughed outright. “You’re shitting me, right? You actually think that’s gonna work?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. I don’t waste time doing things half-assed.” Shawnee swung off her horse and picked up her rope bag, clearly serious about leaving.

Tori rode up and jabbed a finger at the line Shawnee had drawn in the dirt. “You’d rather watch me miss every steer right there than turn them on down the arena and let you throw your rope?”

“Yep.”

“That’s…stupid.”

Shawnee whipped around, suddenly fierce. “No, Princess, it’s called trying. Pushing yourself. Getting better every day, instead of just going through the motions. Your hunka burnin’ love taught you how to rope pretty good. Now, if you’ll quit being such a wuss, I’ll teach you how to compete.”

Tori stared at her, mind completely blown. First Delon, now this. It was just too damn much. She closed her eyes, dropped her chin to her chest, and took a long, deep breath. Then another. Just tell her to fuck off and die. But the words wouldn’t come. Deep inside, that knot of rock-hard stubbornness refused to let her back down.

“Whatever,” she said. “I can jump out and throw my rope in the dirt all night.”

Shawnee grinned. “Now, there’s a positive attitude. Get yer skinny ass in the box—we’ll see if you can miss ten in a row.”

* * *

When they finally turned the steers out for the night and uncinched their horses, Tori was exhausted, mentally and physically.

“So you know how I said earlier that I could pee my pants?” Shawnee asked. “I really mean it now.”

Tori blinked at her, uncomprehending.

“You do have indoor plumbing, right? I mean, from the looks of that house…” Shawnee waved a hand in the direction of the concrete bunker.

Oh. Shit. She wanted to go inside. Where no one else had set foot since the day the moving company had dropped off her furniture.

“Uh, sure,” she said, and led the way across the yard.

Opening the front door felt like ripping off a scab. As they passed through the narrow foyer and into the living room, she felt Shawnee’s gaze like a physical thing, reaching out and touching, leaving fingerprints in the dust on the cluttered coffee table, leafing through the magazines scattered on the floor, smudging the glass on the pair of photographs beside the television.

Tori made a jerky motion. “End of the hall, second door on the left.”

“Thanks.”

Tori veered into the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator door. The shelves were jammed with the moldering remains of well-intentioned trips to the grocery store, real meals that never came to pass. Somewhere in there… She rummaged around, pushing aside a bag of desiccated carrots, wrinkling her nose at a tub full of something that had gone green and fuzzy, and grabbed two Dr. Peppers before any of the science experiments could rear up and go for her throat. She had a can in each hand when Shawnee emerged from the bathroom.

“Drink?” Tori asked, holding out a can to lure Shawnee back to the vicinity of the front door, the better to shove her out.

“No, thanks.” Shawnee paused, her attention drawn to the pictures beside the television.

Tori set one can down with a clunk, then popped the top on the other. Anything to keep her hands busy so she didn’t rush over and snatch the pictures from under Shawnee’s nose—an action shot of her and Willy roping, and another of the two of them grinning like fools as they were presented with trophy buckles, the first they’d won as a team.

“This your husband?” Shawnee asked.

“Yes.”

Shawnee stuffed her hands into the pockets of her faded jean jacket. “I hate to be the one to point it out, Princess, but you married yourself a big ol’ fat boy.”

“Willy was not fat! He was just…” Loud and proud and big enough to be her entire world. “You couldn’t squeeze Willy into any smaller package.”

“That’s what my mama says about me.” Shawnee straightened. “You don’t have a bed.”

“No room in the moving van.”

Which was a flat-out lie. She’d brought only the bare essentials, bits and pieces of their life that she couldn’t let go. She had no need for a king-sized bed without Willy to fill the vast empty space.

Shawnee blew out a gusty breath and turned to face Tori. “Okay, look, I suck at pussyfooting around. So I’m just gonna say—I Googled you and your husband. I know how he died. Hell, I remember when it happened. I was at a ropin’ up in Colorado and all the Wyoming guys were talkin’ about it.”

Emotions rippled through Tori—shock, grief, the ever-present thread of anger because Damn you, Willy, for leaving me like this. But when she opened her mouth, what came out was “You Google?”

“Yeah, I know how to run a computer. I can even spell most of the big words all by myself.” Shawnee rolled her eyes. “This is the kind of snotty shit that made you real hard to like back in college.”

“I was hard to like? You—” Tori jabbed a finger at Shawnee, then cursed as Dr. Pepper sloshed onto the faded linoleum. “You told the rodeo coach it’d be a fucking miracle if he ever made a roper out of me. While I was sitting right there.”

Shawnee shrugged, unapologetic. “You waltzed in and treated our practices like they were a roping clinic, taking time away from girls who’d been working for that spot for years, and the coach fell all over you because your daddy might write the school a fat check.”

“I was just—” So used to her family name greasing the rails she hadn’t even realized it was happening. She scowled down at her soda can, thumbing the tab hard enough to snap it off. “I didn’t think… You could’ve said something.”

“I did.”

“Not that kind of something!”

Shawnee made a What can I say? face. “Bitch is my default mode. When are we ropin’ again?”

“Saturday afternoon?” Tori heard herself say.

“Can’t. There’s a big Wrangler roping in Childress this weekend.”

Where Shawnee would have partners who could turn steers all day in the six-second hole. Unlike Tori. But that could change.

“Tuesday, then,” she said.

“That’ll work.”

They walked outside, Tori trailing along behind and stopping to hover awkwardly in the middle of the driveway as Shawnee loaded her horse. Inside the barn, Fudge whinnied, shrill and high. The buckskin nickered in response, as if Fudge had earned that much respect. Shawnee slammed the back gate of the trailer, tied it shut with the chunk of rope, and ambled to the pickup. She paused, then puffed out her cheeks and let the air hiss between her teeth.

“Look, this is none of my business…”

“Like that ever stopped you.”

Shawnee snorted, acknowledging the point. “Maybe you being back, living right down the road from Delon, has nothing to do with him, but just in case…” She propped one hand on top of the door and leveled an accusing stare at Tori. “Delon is a good guy, and you really fucked him up last time. Don’t do that again.”

She climbed in her pickup and rattled away, leaving Tori to stare after her, open-mouthed.