Chapter Twenty
Emma
Saturday
We’d brought two of the quarter horses with us — Max and Tucker — one to race and the other to sell. Lacey and I were in the corral saddling up Max after giving him a thorough grooming. I’d bathed both him and Tucker the day before, trimmed their body hair, and clipped their manes and tails. Each horse was stunningly gorgeous, strong and proud, their hair shiny in the sun from nose to tail.
A few people had already asked after them, offering much more than Pete had hoped to make. I knew before the day was over that both horses would be sold. I hated to see them go — I’d always had a soft heart for the horses on our family farm, which, fortunately, we’d never had to part with for anything besides old age — but I was happy for Pete and Lacey. This was how the ranch stayed afloat.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked Lacey once we had Max saddled up and ready to go.
“I live for this shit,” she said, and we laughed, but she seemed a little nervous, too. She was dressed in a dark blue pair of jeans, a long sleeved red shirt with black accents and gleaming buttons, a shiny new pair of boots, and a black cowboy hat. Her light hair was pulled into a tight braid at the base of her neck, the way she wore it most days on the ranch.
“I’m nervy, too,” she admitted. “I just need to keep my mind off of it until it’s my turn. Then all those nerves just go away.”
I knew from Pete that Lacey’d been barrel racing since well before middle school. She could do just about anything on a horse: jump, rope, race, trail ride… I loved watching her work on the ranch. She loved the horses, and she knew exactly how to get each one to reach their maximum potential.
“How’re things between you and Pete?” She wasn’t looking at me. She was going over Max’s coat with a body brush. There was no need of that — he was shiny and clean — but she needed something to keep her busy.
I cleared my throat, not quite sure how to answer that question. Things were good, but telling Lacey about my relationship with Pete felt wrong somehow. I hadn’t quite figured out the relationship between the two of them. They said they were like kin, and I believed them. But, sometimes, the way they looked at each other wasn’t quite the way a brother would look at a sister.
I chided myself for thinking that way. Lacey’d been nothing but nice to me in all the time I’d been on the ranch. And, she really seemed to care about Pete being happy.
“Things are good,” I said.
Lacey kept on brushing Max, who was loving the extra attention. Between all the primping yesterday and the extra attention today, both horses were hovering someplace close to heaven.
“He really likes you,” she said, glancing at me for a second before going back to her work with Max. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
My cheeks tingled, a blush creeping over them at her words. “I like him, too.”
Lacey turned, the brush pausing over Max’s withers. He whinnied and shook his head, displeased with the sudden stop to the attention.
“All I ask is that you don’t hurt him. He seems tough, but he ain’t. He’s lost a lot of people close to him.” Her brown eyes were fixed on me, a shadow falling over her face that made it clear how much concern she felt over this. “You’d think that would make him good at getting over being hurt, but it did just the opposite. He’s a lot more sensitive than he seems.”
“He’s a sweet man,” I said, smiling as I tilted my head. “I won’t hurt him. I promise.”
Lacey smiled, too. “You’re good for him, Emma. I’m glad he found you.”
Before I could respond to that, Pete appeared outside of the corral. The moment passed and Lacey went back to grooming Max unnecessarily. Pete let himself into the fenced area full of riders readying their horses and walked over to us.
“You ready, Lace?” he asked, grinning at her, his blue eyes lit up.
She kept her face grim and determined. “Ready as I’m gonna be.”
He clapped her on the back. “We’ll be rooting for you in the stands.” He turned to me, those blue eyes wide enough to weaken my knees a little. I just couldn’t get used to how striking his eyes were. “Are you ready, Emma?”
“Good luck, Lacey,” I said; she nodded, not looking at me, her jaw clenched as she worried over Max. I could see she needed a few moments to herself. Pete held out his hand, and I took it. We left the corral and went to find seats high up in the stands where we’d have a good view of the action. No one was in the area below us, just three barrels set up in a cloverleaf pattern I’d seen duplicated more than a few times on the ranch.
“Lacey’ll come shooting out of there,” Pete began to explain, pointing a thick finger at the far side of the arena.
“She’s got to cross an official standing at the start of the race with a flag. When she runs by, he’ll drop it so the timer starts. She’ll loop around that barrel first.” He pointed to the one on the right. “Then that one.” He pointed to the one directly across from it on the left. “And then that last one.” He pointed at the one set further back from the others. “She and Max’ll go back the way they came. As soon as she passes the starting line, the man will wave the flag again, and the timer will stop.”
Lacey had explained all this to me on the farm, and I’d seen her trotting around the coral with Max, turning him in tighter and tighter circles, leaning so far I thought he’d topple over on top of her. But seeing the course in person was completely different. It was the size of the arena and all the people sitting around, waiting to see the riders begin. My stomach twisted with anxiety for her.
“At a bigger rodeo like the one Lacey’ll do in a few weeks, they use an electric eye.”
“Do riders ever get hurt?” I asked, cutting into his description of what an electric eye was. Lacey’d already told me about all of that, too.
Pete shrugged in my peripheral vision, but I kept my eyes pinned on the cloverleaf pattern below us, imagining Max and Lacey running through them, leaning dangerously to one side and then the other.
“Nah, not really,” he said. “Accidents can happen, but if you came to do this, you know what you’re doing.”
That wasn’t very comforting.
The announcer broadcast the start of the barrel racing event over the loudspeaker. My gut twisted harder, and I squeezed my hands together to keep from squirming in my seat. Lacey was the first rider. The announcer called her and Max by name. The crowd roared, then a hush fell over it as the official walked from the side of the arena, a large flag in one hand.
“Here we go,” Pete whispered, nearly under his breath.
Lacey walked Max through the entrance of the arena. She went to line him up and, without warning, took off at a dead run. She raced past the man at the start line, and he dropped his flag, starting the timer.
“Go, Lacey!” Pete hollered. “You got this!”
My hands tightened in my lap as she grabbed hold of the horn of the saddle with one hand and controlled the reins with the other, looping Max tightly around the first barrel. They rode hard for the second barrel, slowing just a little to make the second of three tight turns. My heart leaped into my throat and stayed there, racing hard.
“Come on, Lace! Finish strong!” Pete screamed, beating his feet on the stands.
Lacey and Max turned tight around the final barrel, her legs pressing against his sides to keep herself deep in the saddle. After clearing the last barrel, she took the reins in both hands and leaned forward, kicking both legs to get Max down the straight shot back to the finish line. As soon as she crossed, the official waved the flag, but she and Max kept going, slowing a bit as they shot out of the arena the same way they’d come in, Lacey grinning and rubbing the horse’s neck as they ran out of sight.
The crowd roared their approval.
Pete let out a triumphant whoop when the announcer reported her score. Eighteen seconds flat.
I grinned as all those nerves left my body and turned my face up to receive Pete’s kiss when he leaned in for one.
“She just beat her best time!” he said, his eyes sparkling with pride for his friend.
Looking at how excited he was, I had to remind myself that Lacey and Pete were just good friends. Not that it guaranteed that was how things would stay between them.
How many sappy movies had I watched with Kasey over the years where best friends ended up getting together after realizing, finally, how much they loved each other? I could tell myself I was being silly all I wanted, but maybe I wasn’t. Maybe something was growing between them that they didn’t even know about. It bothered me to think that way. But there it was.
We went down to congratulate Lacey, who was all smiles after such a great run.
“We’re going out tonight,” Pete told her. “Care to join us?”
She shook her head. “I’m going out with the gals.” She’d made lots of friends in the rodeo circuit after all her years of competition. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow morning at the hotel for breakfast.”
By the time we made it out to Pete’s pickup, it was only a little past five o’clock.
“Kasey’s working at Murdock’s tonight,” I said. “We should head by there first to say hello.”
“Sounds good to me.” He started up the truck. “As long as we’re getting food and few beers, I’m not too concerned with where we go.”
After a quick stop by the hotel, I directed him to the bar. We parked the truck and walked a few blocks to Murdock’s. Pete held the door to let me go in first. It wasn’t too busy yet. I knew from Kasey that things really got going after ten on Saturdays, but I didn’t plan to be here that late. We’d rolled out of the ranch just after seven in the morning, meaning I’d gotten up just after four thirty to help Pete and Lacey prepare the horses for the trip. After the excitement from the rodeo wore all the way off, I expected to be pretty beat.
Kasey was next to the bar, dressed in her little black shorts and red t-shirt, chatting with a customer, her eyes wide and mouth spread into a sunny grin. She made great tips at Murdock’s, partly because of how cute she was, but her real moneymaker was how well she could make a man think he was the funniest, most interesting and attractive person she’d ever met. She just had that open, charming way about her. I’d seen her come home after a late Friday or Saturday shift with her purse stuffed full of ten and twenty dollar bills from her adoring fans.
She saw us and came running over, her short hair bobbing over her shoulders. She’d lightened it since I’d seen her last. Now it was a deep honey color. I’d never try such a thing, but it looked good on her.
“Emma!” she cried, pulling me into a hug. She smelled like candy. It was another thing her male customers liked. She grinned at me. She had on so much makeup, I barely recognized her. She watched tutorials online, learning all kinds of tricks. Today, she’d made her eyes look pointy at the ends with shadow and liner. Her lips were cherry red, and her cheeks looked powdery soft. She’d even added a fake beauty mark just above her mouth.
“This is Pete,” I told her, hooking a thumb at the solid shape of him standing beside me.
She turned the sharp point of her attention to him, looking him up and down in that shameless manner she had, her grin getting even wider to show off the crooked eyeteeth we had in common. “I’ve heard so much about you.” She held out a small hand, and Pete shook it. “I’m Kasey.”
“Howdy, Kasey,” he said. “Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot, too.”
“All good things, I hope!” I could see by the way she was grinning that she at least approved of Pete’s looks, not that I’d doubted she would.
He laughed that low chuckle he had, the one that drove me a little crazy. When he reached for my hand, I laced my fingers with his, just glad to have that contact.
Kasey’s eyes lit on our interlaced fingers for a few seconds before jumping up to meet my eyes, her smile blazing. I smiled, too. I couldn’t help it. She looked at Pete again.
“You must be something special to have caught my sister’s eye. She doesn’t date just anybody.”
Now all three of us laughed, my cheeks getting a little red.
“Emma Flowers?”
I turned at the sound of my name, gasping at who I saw.
It was Jack Terrance.
I’d recognize him anywhere, even though we hadn’t seen each other since high school and he’d changed plenty.
“Jack!” I let go of Pete’s hand to give my old friend a hug. He squeezed me hard, lifting me off the ground as I giggled into his ear. When he set me down again, I stared up at him, a little dizzy from the ride.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I work in Austin. I’m a firefighter.” His voice hadn’t changed a bit. He was wearing his fluffy blond hair clipped close to his head, and his brown eyes were just as kind and full of gentle humor as I remembered them. He was much bigger, I assumed from lifting weights regularly, the muscles bulging in his arms and neck. Back in school, he’d been tall, but gangly, more basketball star than football player.
“Oh my God, Jack!” Kasey squealed. She moved in for a hug as he laughed at her characteristic overreaction. The girl had been a Hollywood actress since infancy, always going over the top if she got the chance.
“Look at you all grown up, Kase!”
“I haven’t seen you in ages,” she replied, shooting that sunny grin up at him. She’d had the worst crush on him back in the day, but he’d considered her his adopted little sister by virtue of our friendship, so she never got even so much as a peck on the lips from him. “I thought you’d dropped off the face of the Earth.”
“We all did,” I said. It dawned on me suddenly how rude I was being. I turned to put my hand on Pete’s rock hard shoulder. He’d been watching the show with an amused look on his tanned face. “Jack, this is Pete. He’s my…” I didn’t know what to say. My boss? My boyfriend? The guy I ate dinner with a few times a week and occasionally sleep with after my work on the farm was done?
Pete stepped in, not the least bit bothered by my sudden inability to define whatever was between us. “I’m Emma’s friend.” The men shook hands.
“Nice to meet you, Pete.”
“Likewise,” he said.
Jack turned his warm brown eyes my way again, his grin getting wider. “You still in Round Rock?”
I nodded. “I moved back after college.”
“I’ll be out visiting my mama and daddy next week. We need to catch up. It’s been way too long.”
We exchanged numbers — neither of us had owned cell phones in high school — as we chatted a bit more. He hadn’t been back to Round Rock in months. I shared some news with him, but there wasn’t much to tell. It was a quiet town that didn’t change much, which was just how I liked it.
“Listen, I have to meet up with a few friends,” Jack said, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. “But I’ll definitely give you a call next week so we can get together.”
“Sounds good,” I said, and lifted up onto my tiptoes to give him another hug. He said goodbye to Pete and Kasey before crossing over to join a table of guys already drinking and getting loud.
“Do you want a drink, Emma?” Pete asked me.
“Yeah, a beer sounds great,” I said.
“You got it.” He moved through the crowd towards the bar.
Kasey took my hands, jumping up and down on the balls of her feet the way she did whenever she was excited about something. “Oh. My. God. Pete is gorgeous, Em!” She squeezed my fingers, and I couldn’t help but smile, too.
“He is pretty to look at, isn’t he?” I laughed, and so did she. “But he’s so nice, too. I’ve never met a sweeter man.”
“I thought for sure he’d be dull,” she said. “What with running a farm and spending all day around animals? But he’s really funny! You got yourself a good one.”
Not that I’d thought she wouldn’t take to him immediately — Pete just had one of those sunny personalities, same as Kasey did — but hearing how much my sister already liked the man I’d been spending most of my time with over the last several weeks calmed the nerves I hadn’t even noticed were churning in my stomach. That was at least one down. The last hurdle was Daddy, but I wasn’t quite ready to introduce him to Pete just yet.
“I’m so happy for you, Em,” she said. “I have to get back to my tables or my boss will throw a fit.”
She smiled because we both knew she could pretty much do whatever she wanted around here and get away with it. Her boss loved her. Literally. Daddy had threatened more than once to come down here and show the man the rough end of his fist. Kasey only rolled her eyes and laughed, telling us how harmless the man was, even if he was most of the way through his fifties with grown children older than I was. I didn’t doubt that she could take care of herself. Neither did Daddy, which was why he’d only threatened to tan the man’s hide and hadn’t actually done it.
I gave her another hug and watched her walk off, getting stuck in a conversation with another male customer before she could even get to the other side of the room. I turned to watch Pete at the bar, waiting on our drinks. Kasey was right. I’d found a good one.