Chapter 40

That son of a bitch. Comparing her to her mother. And what was that bullshit about her house? And her cat, for Christ’s sake? As if he had any room to talk, living above a damn shop. When he came back…

Tori drew a deep, shaky breath, unclenching her fists. He would come back. He had to. That’s the way fights worked. You blew up and said things you didn’t really mean. Things like “You are just like your mother!” Then somebody stomped off and after you’d both had time to cool down, someone said they were sorry and the other said “Me too,” and then you talked it out and had crazy-good make-up sex.

She waited an hour. Then two. A whole day. Then another. As the sun set on the second day, she sat on the fence with the cat perched on a post on one side of her and Fudge rubbing his head against her shoulder on the other, and stared down the empty driveway, her heart slowly disintegrating. Obviously, Delon had meant every word. Tears welled up and she slapped at them with an angry hand. Yeah, she’d pushed him. For his own good. Made him better, forced him through to the other side when he didn’t believe it could happen.

And he’d compared her to Claire. Cold. Calculating. Unfeeling. It was like dozens of her mother’s scalpels, slicing into her flesh. A thousand stab wounds to her soul. She’d poured everything into healing him, loving him, trying to show him what he could be—what they could be. Let him inside her head and shown him the person she’d been and the person she hoped to be. Bold, powerful, unstoppable, she’d said. And he’d seen an overbearing bitch who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

On the third day, she wiped away the last tear she was gonna shed for that man and went to clean Fudge’s stall. The first pitchfork full of manure landed on the card Delon had tossed into the wheelbarrow. She fished it out by one corner, stared at it for a long moment, then flung it as hard as she could, sailing it into the back corner of the tack room where it hit the wall and slid down behind the saddle rack while she went back to shoveling shit.

* * *

On the fourth day after the fight, Delon was staring blankly at a computer screen—again—when Gil walked into the dispatcher’s office and shoved a piece of paper under his nose, with a list of scribbled dates and times.

“What’s this?” Delon asked.

“I entered you in Beaumont and Nacogdoches next weekend so you can work the kinks out before Austin.”

Delon snatched the paper out of Gil’s hand, adrenaline and terror cartwheeling through his gut. The first two rodeos were small town deals, he could slide in and out without much notice, but everybody who was anybody would be at Austin—and they’d all be waiting to see if Delon Sanchez had come back a champ or a chump.

He mashed the paper in his fist. “What if I’m not ready?”

Gil hitched an indifferent shoulder. “You can either go to the rodeos or drive over to Dumas and fix whatever mess you made with Tori. Either way, I want your mopey ass out of here.”

For a brief, wild moment, Delon considered crawling back to Tori. Telling her he hadn’t meant what he said—not the way it sounded. But then what? Even if she’d give him another chance, he wasn’t the man she wanted, and she couldn’t have the normal, anonymous life she craved here in the Panhandle. He could hardly blame her for wanting out, considering some of that crap on the Internet—especially since the gossip about the two of them had spread to Wyoming. Geezus. He’d never seen anything so cruel. Regardless of how he was riding, Delon might have to think twice about entering Cheyenne this year. The people there were downright scary.

So there was no point in making that drive over to Dumas. He couldn’t fix anything with Tori. Not permanently. At best, he’d give them time to do more damage. She hadn’t even acknowledged the gift inside the card he’d given—okay, sort of thrown at—her. If nothing else, he’d expected to have it dumped in his driveway. But nope. Not a word. Humiliation scorched through him, imagining her opening that card, rolling her eyes at his attempt at a grand romantic gesture. So lame.

He smoothed out Gil’s paper, studied the dates, and felt the rodeos rushing at him like the reflector posts on an icy curve. His body was ready, but his mind…he wouldn’t truly know until he climbed down into the chute. Odds were he’d crash, but so what? Most likely he’d only injure his pride, and that was already shredded. At least he would be able to tell Beni he’d tried. And if he could find the magic he’d captured for those few brief seconds on Blue Duck, he’d show Tori—

Dammit. He curled his hands into fists and thumped the arms of his chair. Every thought circled back to her. Whether his career lasted a week or another ten years, she’d be a part of every ride, ingrained in every single spur stroke. He couldn’t climb into the Peterbilt or the Freightliner without picturing her in the passenger’s seat. And the sleeper. He would never be free of her again.

Hell, let’s be honest. He never had been.

“There’s a practice session tomorrow night at the ranch,” Gil said. “We still need to do some fine-tuning on your bind.”

Delon jumped up, his chair slamming into the wall. “I’ll go get the rigging.”