Chapter 37

By the second week of March, Delon could sign his name with his left hand almost as well as his right. He could also throw a decent wiffle-ball pitch and catch a Frisbee—Beni’s favorite of Tori’s unending list of exercises—plus hold his own in a game of pool and hit the occasional bull’s-eye on a dartboard—Gil’s idea of agility training. He’d become so accustomed to doing everything backward that just that morning he’d flipped Gil the bird left-handed without even thinking.

But he could not tear a piece of athletic tape, and when you were fixin’ to wedge your hand into a rigging strapped to a half ton of bucking horse, you’d best give your body any help you could. With his shirt stripped off the right half of his body, he held his bare arm crooked, attempting to run the tape in a figure eight around his forearm and biceps, crossing at the bend of his elbow to keep the horse from jerking his arm straight. He spooled the tape out long enough to tear with his teeth, then cursed when it folded in half and stuck to itself.

When Gil shouldered through the gate from the arena, the sight of him sent Delon spinning into a time warp. All the years. All the rides. If anyone ever committed murder in this spot, the CSI team would find Sanchez DNA in the dirt. Sweat. Spit. Blood. And once, after being kicked in the gut during a spectacular buck-off, everything Gil had eaten since breakfast.

Gil eyed the mangled tape job. “Shoulda brought your personal trainer along.”

“She’s a therapist. Taping isn’t her thing.”

Plus he’d sort of failed to mention this little practice session to Tori. He’d meant to, from the moment he’d gathered up his nerve and called Steve Jacobs to ask if he could come out and get on a few, but every time he tried, his tongue balked and his brain peppered him with reasons to keep it to himself. Things were better between him and Violet, but the truce was fragile enough that Delon didn’t want to risk stirring things up. He hadn’t told Tori about the fight because it made him—rightly—look like a selfish, insecure prick. And because Tori had a tendency to foam at the mouth when she heard Violet’s name.

He fumbled the tape again. Geezus. He was so nervous, his fingers were numb. Having Tori here would have been that much more pressure. She had worked so hard, constantly digging up new research, tweaking his training plan, testing his balance and reaction time. She’d even put him through a two-hour brain function screening, so that if he should ever suffer a concussion, she’d have baseline measurements.

Relentless. Delon wasn’t rock-stupid enough to openly compare Tori to her mother, but she could be a little overwhelming. It’d be better to quietly get these first horses out of the way—see how it went—then bring her along next time, when his stomach wasn’t already a wreck.

Gil set down the tablet he’d brought along to video Delon’s rides, and snatched the roll of tape out of his hand. Delon flexed his biceps while Gil expertly wound the tape around his arm, flicking a glance at his bare torso. “Nice six-pack for a guy who’s single-handedly keeping Hershey in business.”

“Stress. The phone and the computer are driving me nuts.” Thank God. It had helped block the worst-case scenarios that kept popping into his head, leading up to this moment.

“Tough deal, having more loads than we can handle.” Gil tore off the last strip of tape and smoothed it flat, then stepped back and tossed the roll to Delon. “Next time business is slow, you and your girlfriend can take the Love Machine and go park in some public place. My favorite kind of advertising. Free.”

And crazy effective. All of the sudden, everybody wanted a truck with the Sanchez logo backed up to their loading dock. Some even asked for the black Freightliner specifically—sick bastards. But your girlfriend? Delon winced, though he couldn’t come up with a better description. He and Tori had spent plenty of time together over the past three weeks, and he’d enjoyed the hell out of having her as a co-pilot, but being with her was like sitting behind these chutes. Familiar, but turned on its side. He wasn’t quite sure how he fit into the picture, especially when the frame was totally out of whack, with all the Internet bullshit. He couldn’t even take her out to lunch.

Luckily, she was happy with pizza and a video game marathon with Beni on a rainy Saturday afternoon. As he’d watched them, sprawled on the floor exchanging trash talk and fist bumps, it had hit him like a ton of bricks that he wanted this to be his future. Wanted it so hard it made him suck in a sharp breath.

Tori had glanced over at the sound, with a smile that promised he’d have her undivided attention…later. His blood had risen, instant and hot, and he understood why Violet had insisted on dancing on the edge of emotional disaster, time after time. This was what had been missing between them. What she’d found with Joe. Which was why he had to be so very, very careful not to let go completely. No matter how Tori and his own raging desire tried to nudge him over the edge into the old insanity, he couldn’t give in. Not yet. She hadn’t mentioned leaving again, but other than buying a bed, she hadn’t done anything to make that house of hers look like a place she wanted to stay, either.

God, he hated that house.

“You’re pathetic.” Gil gave a pitying shake of his head. “It’s like watching Beni eat dinner. How long do you figure you can keep it all on your plate without letting anything touch?”

Delon just shot him a dark look and shrugged into his shirt. Focus on now. Deal with the rest later. Male voices rumbled and the thud of hooves sounded out back, Steve and Cole bringing up the horses they’d picked from the practice herd for Delon. Rather than easing his nerves, the quiet behind the chutes only amplified his anxiety. There should be half a dozen other cowboys jostling and joking around him. And if it was weird for him, what must it be like for Gil, who hadn’t set foot here since his own accident?

“Hey, Dream Boy! You gonna be ready any time today?”

Delon made a rude gesture at his brother, then strapped on his spurs and zipped his Kevlar vest. They molded to his body, armor he’d carried into so many battles it conformed to his shape. He did a couple of final warm-up squats, then climbed up onto the back of the first chute as two horses came snorting and blowing up the lane. At the sight of the sorrel mare in the front, his jaw dropped.

“Riata Rose?”

“Colts are too unpredictable,” Cole said gruffly.

He slid the gate shut behind the best horse in their herd, vaulted over the fence—a slick move for a guy his size—and untied his horse. Again, not a backup, but Cole’s number one mount. As Cole strapped on his heavy, padded chaps, the arena gate swung open. Violet stood, reins in hand. Like Cole, she’d left her second string at the barn and saddled Cadillac, her bulletproof brown gelding.

“I, uh, thought I’d give y’all a hand,” she said, eyes and voice uncertain. “Unless you’d rather have Daddy.”

She was asking his permission, at her arena. Violet, who’d pulled him off at least a hundred broncs. Who’d damn near got herself killed trying to save his neck. Yeah, she’d run him down in the process, through no fault of hers. Delon had told her so—everyone had told her so—but obviously he wasn’t the only one with a few demons to slay today.

“I trust you.” And he realized he meant it in every way possible.

He caught a flash of her bright, relieved smile before she turned to grab the chaps looped over her saddle horn. His throat knotted, an embarrassing heat gathering behind his eyes. He crouched and bowed his head on the pretense of stretching as he fought the wave of emotion. All the months he’d avoided these people, slapped away their compassion, and the first time he gave them an opportunity to help they responded by giving him their absolute best.

Gil thumped him on the back, rattling his teeth. “Come on, numb nuts. Let’s ride.”

* * *

Delon thought he was ready, but when the gate swung open and the full force of Riata Rose’s first jump hit him, his right arm went Huh? and his head snapped back and hit her rump. Then she made her signature leap into the air and the hang time gave him a chance to catch up. Each progressive stroke was a little stronger, his balance a little more sure, but his shoulders were forward one jump, back the next, his heels not quite finding that new groove.

A whistle shrilled—Beni, perched next to Iris on a beer cooler outside the fence, acting as official timer. Violet moved in to trip the release on the flank strap while Cole rode up along the opposite side where Delon could throw an arm around his waist and pull free from the mare. Delon dropped to his feet in the dirt and took three steps before he realized he’d been so focused on his mechanics he hadn’t thought about his knee once since he called for the gate.

Score one for Tori. She’d done exactly what she’d promised—moved his focus off his injury. The guilt pricked at him again but he shook it off. He wasn’t excluding her. With both Gil and Iris taking videos, she could study his rides from every angle and analyze her heart out. He walked to the stripping chute, where Riata Rose stood calm as a show pony while Steve uncinched the rigging.

“Not bad, considering,” the big man said.

Pretty high praise from Steve Jacobs. Delon nodded his thanks, draped the rigging over his arm and gathered up the cinches so they wouldn’t drag in the dirt. Cole slammed the sliding rear gate shut behind the next horse. Delon’s muscles clenched in a combination of anticipation and dread as he eyed the dun horse they’d run in, a gelding they called Stoneboat because when his front end dropped, it felt like a two-ton boulder strapped to the end of your arm. Delon had better nut up and prepare to take the fight to the horse or Stoneboat would thrash him.

From the instant the gate swung wide, it was a matter of pure survival. He forgot all about mechanics and just scrambled to stay hooked. His spur strokes were about six inches long and Stoneboat still managed to jerk the rigging away from him, so that the last five jumps yanked him to the end of his arm, then slammed his crotch into the back side of the rigging. God bless Violet for being right there to snag him before his balls were hammered up into his guts, despite his athletic cup. She circled around and dropped him a few paces from the bucking chutes. He stumbled over to sag against the nearest gate while he caught his breath. Geezus. What was wrong with him that he did this for fun?

Gil clambered down the chute next to him. “Lookin’ good, D.”

Delon shot him a the fuck you say look.

“Seriously.” Gil held out the tablet. “I mean, yeah, you spurred like you’re tryin’ to pinch a raisin between your ass cheeks, but you stayed square, never got rocked into your hand. Now you’ve just gotta be more aggressive with your feet.”

Delon could barely stand to watch. Ugh. He looked like a high school rookie, scared to pull his feet out of the horse’s neck. His balls throbbed in time with every jump Stoneboat took on the screen. He grunted in disgust, then cleared his head and replayed both videos, this time dissecting each ride, part by part, as if it wasn’t him on the screen. No, it wasn’t all bad. He had stayed centered, used his free arm like he should and kept his chin tucked, except for the last few jumps when Stoneboat got him really strung out. As Tori would say, they had a good foundation to build on.

Another pang of guilt, this one with serious claws, but then Violet rode up and handed him a bottle of Gatorade, passed to her from Iris’s cooler, and Steve strode over to take a look at the video. Violet and Cole leaned down from their horses to watch and they all added their two cents, which totaled up to what Gil had already told him. He’d climbed on those two horses with the sole purpose of proving his knee could take the punishment. Mission accomplished.

“You up for one more?” Steve asked.

Delon took stock. He was sweating more from adrenaline than exertion. Thanks to Tori he was in the best shape of his life, but come morning, he was still gonna feel like he’d been booted down a staircase. One more ride wouldn’t make it any worse. Then an unmistakable blue roan came snorting into the chute, and the red dirt trembled under his feet. Blue Duck. The bronc he’d been on the night of his wreck. Steve Jacobs was gonna force him to get back on that horse and ride in the most literal way possible.

While Gil and Steve set the rigging and the flank strap, Delon took a few steps down the back of the chutes and crouched, head bowed, taking deep, cleansing breaths. Nothing to get worked up about. The wreck had been due to wet equipment and a muddy arena. Blue Duck was better than average, strong but not dangerous. But as Delon stood above the horse, a foot braced on either side of the chute, his mind was full of the smell of rain and wet horseflesh, arena lights glistening on a near solid sheet of water where there should’ve been dirt.

Instead of fighting the flood of memories, he opened his mind and let them come, drowning his senses. The rodeo announcer’s patter over the blare of music. The rising buzz of adrenaline in his blood, and the slow thud of his heartbeat in his ears. His rosined glove creaked against rawhide as he ran his hand all the way into the rigging, then backed it out a tad to make the leather pucker at the base of his fingers, forming the bind. Once again, Blue Duck cocked his head and watched from under a tangle of black mane as Delon pounded his fingers closed around the handle.

He scooted his hips up snug against the rigging and planted his feet in the gelding’s shoulders. Tucking his chin into his chest, Delon focused on the initials burned into the leather. G.A.S. His pulse gave a single, hard thump. Gas it. Delon cocked his free arm back and nodded his head.

Blue Duck exploded from the chute like a steel spring, straight into the air. Delon held his feet rock-steady until Blue Duck’s front hooves hit the ground. Then he jerked his knees, his spurs singing and his shoulder blades bouncing off the horse’s rump as his rowels clicked the front edge of the rigging. Then snap! Heels planted back in Blue Duck’s neck before the horse’s front feet hit the ground again. Two jumps, three, his body falling into that perfect groove. Delon’s heart soared, higher and higher, as if it could fly right off into the blue Texas sky.

Then his hand popped out of the rigging and he was airborne, flailing in the nothingness, an instant of sick anticipation before he slammed into the dirt hard enough to drive every molecule of oxygen out of his body. He tried to inhale, but his body refused. Panic coiled through him, his mind flashing back to those horrible moments after his lung had collapsed. His muscles convulsed, fighting, fighting…please, God, don’t let me die! He was so consumed by the memory that he was stunned when a hand touched his arm and he opened his eyes to find not an EMT, but Iris, her round face pinched with worry.

“Are you hurt?”

Her touch and her voice broke through the panic. He forced himself to feel for the quality of the pain. Nothing sharp or stabbing, just a standard issue body slam and the wind knocked out of him. His diaphragm relaxed fractionally. Delon held up a hand in a give me a minute gesture. Slowly, painfully, the spasm receded and he could take a shallow breath. Then another.

Beni’s face popped into view. “Wow, Daddy, that’s the first time I ever saw you catch air.”

“That’s why he sucks at the landings,” Gil said. He hooked a hand under Delon’s armpit and pulled him into a seated position, grinning like a loon. “That was awesome!”

Delon pried off his hat and knocked the dirt from the smashed brim. “Especially the part where I didn’t make the whistle.”

Gil waved that off like a pesky fly. “New glove, different rigging. We just need to adjust your bind. But geezus, D, look!”

Gil shoved the tablet under his nose and hit play. Delon’s breath caught in a whole different way as he watched. The chaps, the hat, the vest were all him, but the ride…God, it was like watching an old video of Gil, only better. Snappier. For a few miraculous seconds he had found that sweet spot between control and reckless abandon. Adrenaline pulsed through him in waves as Gil and Steve hoisted him to his feet and Iris dusted him off. Delon clutched the tablet like it was the Holy Grail. Just wait until Tori saw…

His joy bubble deflated some, but didn’t burst. Sure, she’d be bent out of shape that he hadn’t told her about today, but once she saw the payoff for all their hard work, she would be so thrilled she’d get over it, and then they could celebrate. He could think of a lot of ways to show his appreciation.

“It is so good to have you both back.” Iris threw an arm around each of them, squeezing hard. Then she nudged Delon. “Next time, you bring your new friend along. After all her hard work, I bet it’s killin’ her to not be here.”

Because, yes, Tori was infinitely more than his therapist. And she had rebuilt him—mentally, physically, emotionally. Refused to let him doubt that they would succeed. And in return—

All of the air emptied out of his lungs again as the miserable truth he’d been dodging slammed into him. Possibly the most important moment of his entire rehab, and he had excluded her. But—

But nothing. All of the excuses—the tension between Violet and Tori, the awkward introductions that might have interfered with his precious focus—none of that was Tori’s fault. He’d known this day was coming and he’d had three weeks and endless opportunities to get it over with. Once again, he’d failed the test. Bombed it. A big fat zero.

And being left out might not kill her, but it could be fatal for him.