Chapter 3

Hank would rather have hauled a load of dynamite through Los Angeles during rush hour than make the fifteen-minute drive out to the Jacobs ranch on Saturday morning. But there was no avoiding Gil when his house was fifty yards from the apartment over the Sanchez shop, and Gil himself was directly downstairs in the dispatcher’s office, the sound of his cursing wafting up through the floor vents.

Facing the Jacobs clan was definitely the lesser evil.

Hank rinsed his coffee cup—he’d snuck down the rear interior stairs to the break room and filled up earlier—and set it on the draining rack, then had to walk all the way into the bedroom for a sweatshirt. He’d existed for nineteen months in a six-by-eight camper meant to sit on the back of a pickup, not be plopped down on a few rotting wooden pallets. By comparison, this was the penthouse suite.

When Gil’s younger brother had lived in this apartment, the walls had been covered with photos of Delon’s winning rides, National Finals Rodeo back numbers, and shelves full of championship belt buckles. It was stripped bare now that Delon had married Tori and moved to her place in Dumas.

Were Hank’s high school athletic trophies and all the photos and memorabilia from the early years of his bullfighting career gathering dust out at the ranch, or had his father dumped the works in the trash?

Still there, he decided as he shrugged into the canvas Sanchez Trucking jacket Gil had given him. His dad wouldn’t waste the time it took to clean out his room. More likely he’d left the old pictures on the walls so he could nurse his resentment along with the occasional beer.

It sure as hell wouldn’t be because he was proud of anything his son had accomplished.

Shut up, Bing’s voice told that insistent, mocking whisper inside his head. If you’ve got nothing good to say, go screw yourself. He imagined her meeting his father…and grinned. Now that would be a sight.

The cold wind slapped him in the face as he stepped onto the exterior second-floor landing. The Panhandle had seen fit to welcome him with glowering skies that spit a few fat drops of rain on his head as he clattered down the metal stairs. The keys to one of the Sanchez pickups were in his pocket and he had the next two days off. Gil had left him zero excuses and specific orders.

He would make an appearance at the Jacobs ranch before he was seen anywhere else in town. With all they’d done for Hank—right up until he’d forced Cole to fire him—they deserved that consideration.

With that in mind, he skirted the edge of Earnest, the better to be unseen. His heart twinged at the sight of dusty brown plains stretching to the horizon, broken only by the barely visible corrugated ridges of the Canadian River breaks.

Home. The recognition vibrated in his bones like a divining rod. Hank ignored it.

Ahead, brake lights flared as a snazzy short-box Ford slowed to turn into the driveway of what had been Cole Jacobs’s childhood home. The house was set well back off the road, surrounded by trees. It had been used as a rental after Cole’s parents and brother died in a car wreck and he moved in with his aunt and uncle. Now Cole lived there with his wife—the human wrecking ball named Shawnee Pickett.

Geezus. It had been hard enough to wrap his head around the two of them sleeping together that last season he’d been with Jacobs Livestock, but silent, tense Cole and loud, outrageous Shawnee…married? Hank just shook his head.

The Ford stopped just down the driveway, the driver either lost or fiddling with his phone. Hank wiped it from his mind as he drove on to the next turn.

Unlike Earnest, the changes at the main Jacobs homestead were obvious. A classy-looking manufactured home had taken the place of Violet’s single-wide trailer, and down by the barn, a shiny aluminum cattle truck gleamed beside the battered single-deck bull hauler with Jacobs Livestock painted on the side in plain block letters.

Hank parked the pickup in front of the big white frame house, surprised the space was empty. If you wanted to find Steve or Cole Jacobs during rodeo’s short off-season, you stopped by the home place after the morning chores were finished. There were plans to be made and fat to be chewed over coffee and whatever Miz Iris had baked. He’d spent his childhood racing up those steps to loiter in Miz Iris’s kitchen or trail along behind Cole and Steve until Melanie, ten years older and already driving when he hit kindergarten, came to fetch him.

Today the place that had been more home to him than his own family’s house was dark and vaguely forbidding, despite the pumpkins lining the porch and a scarecrow cowboy spurring a hay bale bucking horse.

They weren’t here.

Disappointment warred with relief in Hank’s churning gut. He’d counted on getting this over with, the whole bunch of them at once. Now the day stretched in front of him, empty as his pockets. He supposed he should call Korby, but his former best friend would want to grab a beer, and the advance Gil had given Hank had been barely enough to buy a decent pair of jeans and stock up on cold cuts, bread, cereal, and milk at the last Walmart along the road.

His stomach rumbled, annoyed that there was no sign of the promised bounty from Miz Iris’s kitchen. He could go skulk around his empty apartment, maybe fix himself a sandwich while he worked up the nerve to drive the dozen miles north of Earnest to the Brookman ranch and clear out his bedroom, solving his wardrobe and decor issues in the process.

Assuming his dad would let him in the house.

As he pondered his options, movement caught his eye. Out in the backyard, the door to the separate office building opened and a woman poked her head out. Miz Iris? He had to squint to be sure. She looked…odd. His fingers were clumsy as he turned off the pickup and fumbled for the door handle. When he stepped out, her hand paused mid-wave, hung for a moment, then fell—along with her smile.

She swung the door wide and it was Hank’s turn to do a double take, trying to fit the round, well-padded version of Miz Iris he’d always known into the slender body that stood before him. Why was she so skinny? His heart skittered in fear. What was wrong with her?

“Hank.” She said his name as if she was repeating a foreign word and wasn’t quite sure what it meant.

His knees felt like putty as he walked toward her, stopping a few yards short. He should smile, but his face couldn’t recall how. “Yes, ma’am.”

The corners of her mouth drew in as she studied him. He returned the favor, trying not to stare. The change was more than her weight. She looked different in a way that was hard to put his finger on. Something about the way she held herself that made her seem less like everyone’s mother and more…sophisticated wasn’t quite the word, but close.

He didn’t like it.

“I expected Gil when I saw the Sanchez pickup.” Her eyebrows pinched together—confusion, or annoyance?

“He’s catching up at the office. We got in late.” Now he should say something about how she looked or…damned if he knew what. He hadn’t rehearsed this part, assuming by now she would be scolding him, pelting him with questions, bustling him into a chair and shoving something to eat or drink into his hands. Anything but regarding him silently, her expression so…undecided.

She wasn’t sure she was happy to see him. And he hadn’t realized until this moment how much he’d been counting on her to be the one person who would welcome him with open arms. The familiar dark threads wound around his heart and squeezed.

Her gaze landed on the Sanchez Trucking logo on his jacket, then popped back up to meet his, her brown eyes sharpening. “You’re not just visiting?”

“No, ma’am. I’m back for…” He trailed off, unable to tell her what he didn’t know. “…a while.”

As long as it took to prove to Gil and to Bing that there was nothing here for him.

“Have you told your sister?”

“No, ma’am.” What difference did it make? It wasn’t like he could pop by Melanie’s place for dinner when she’d moved to Oregon to marry that condescending bastard, Wyatt. One more piece of his former life that hadn’t waited around for him. He wrung the bitterness from his tone, leaving it tight and dry. “I expect I’ll see her at Thanksgiving.”

“They’re not coming. She just let Violet know this morning.”

“Oh.” Was he relieved? Disappointed? He’d have to decide later, when he wasn’t putting all his effort into navigating this encounter.

An awkward silence fell, during which they were both intensely aware that in a former life, Miz Iris would have insisted he have dinner with them and he would have jumped at the offer. He worked his fists in his pockets. She folded her arms tight over her chest.

The office phone rang, to their mutual relief.

She didn’t turn away immediately. “Joe and Violet are in Mexico with his mother and the kids. Delon and Tori went too. Everyone else is over at Cole’s place working bulls.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She continued to regard him for another nerve-jangling brrrinnnggg of the old-fashioned black phone. “I suppose we’ll be seeing you.”

In Earnest? They could hardly help it. “Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded, then turned and hurried back into the office. As Hank strode to his pickup, he wondered if we’ll be seeing you meant come on back another day or get off my lawn?

He could hope for the first, but he’d earned the second.

* * *

Back out on the highway, Hank barely got up to speed before slowing to make the turn to the other Jacobs homesite. His palms were damp on the steering wheel as he rolled up to the house. Here were the pickups he’d expected to find at the main house—two beefy four-door duallys made for pulling heavy loads. Hank pulled in beside that short-box Ford he’d seen earlier—exactly like he’d always promised he’d buy himself when he started working the big rodeos on a regular basis.

Hank’s only memory of visiting Cole’s family was when he was around three, when he’d spun himself in the tire swing until he threw up—sort of like how he felt right now. He did know the kitchen was around the back of the low stucco house, so he followed a redbrick walk to the rear patio. The yard was immaculate, the late fall flowers warm bursts of orange and deep maroon in the flat light. There was no need to knock—the people inside could see him coming through the sliding glass doors.

The first three he’d expected, but it was the sight of the fourth that punched clear through him.

Grace. Shit.

He might have turned himself right around and made tracks if Shawnee hadn’t yanked the door open and stood, hand braced on the frame, to give him a long, insolent once-over. She had not changed a whit—still built on the generous side and more than comfortable in her skin, with the wicked gleam in her eyes that said she wouldn’t hesitate to bust his balls. Even her hair was the same, a waist-length snarl fighting the confines of the baseball cap she’d jammed over it.

“I’ll be damned,” she drawled. “It lives.”