Chapter 14

“Too bad I’ve got this bum shoulder,” Ace said, as Shawnee saddled Roy for the roping on Sunday. “Looks like it’s gonna be a nice little pot.”

The sling was the reason they’d been saddled with Ace. His latest lady love was not the usual rich widow. She’d taken her MBA and her father’s unambitious plumbing supply company and built a multimillion-dollar chain, tearing through a few husbands in the process. Bored with semiretirement, she’d invested her spoils in Quarter Horses—the best rodeo bloodlines her money could buy.

It was depressing to realize even a woman that smart could lose her head over a sweet-talkin’, good-lookin’ man.

She’d turned over one of her best prospects to Ace, who—with his complete lack of patience and inability to resist the quick score—had tried to make it rodeo-ready in six weeks so he could enter a big roping in Albuquerque. He’d pushed too hard, too fast. It had returned the favor by flipping over backward in the roping box, very nearly crushing him. He was damn lucky to escape with only a separated shoulder and a stiff back. Especially after the horse’s owner got done with him.

Cole had kept his promise, though. He’d found a use for Ace. After the first performance, Tyrell had even given him a microphone and allowed him to chime in with color commentary—backstory about the cowboys, their careers, their parents’ and grandparents’ careers. Ace had bummed around Texas rodeos his entire life. He knew everybody and their daddy and had probably tried to sleep with their mothers.

He’d mostly steered clear of her, for which Shawnee was grateful. It wasn’t out of respect for her feelings, she was sure. She hadn’t asked Cole for details of their conversation. They all knew Ace was just biding his time, using them as his bolt-hole until his shoulder healed. Calculating all the angles until he figured out which one would get him what he needed to move on to better things.

“Been a long time since we roped together,” he said.

And whose fault is that? Shawnee slipped Roy’s bridle over his ears and bent to run the tie-down between his front legs and snap it to the cinch. “You don’t have a horse.”

“I can always find someone to mount me.”

Sad truth. And he wasn’t just talking about the ladies. Local cowboys would stand in line for bragging rights about how Ace Pickett had borrowed their horse that time. Even better if Ace happened to win something. Which was all they’d get, because Ace knew how to pick the ones who would happily decline the standard twenty-five percent mount money in exchange for a beer with the man of the hour.

And speaking of money…“I doubt you have enough cash to ante up for penny poker, let alone entry fees.”

“I am a little short at the moment.” He pitched her a sheepish smile with just the right amount of fatherly affection. “But I thought, for old times’ sake…”

“That I’d pay to rope with you?”

She snorted her derision. It still pinched at her heart, though, that fleeting, ridiculous moment of imagining how it could have been. There had been a time when she’d been as starstruck as all the rest. She had insisted on learning to heel steers because Ace was a header, and that way they could be a team. Look out, here they come—Pickett and Pickett. She would be his pride and joy, and he’d take her to ropings and together they would—

Turning her back, she yanked a rope out of her bag. All of that was before. Now it was long, long after. Her cancer had struck the match, but Ace was the one who’d set fire to every bridge in sight. She refused to feel guilty or sorry or even bitterly triumphant as she slung her rope over her saddle horn and left him behind to go do the one thing he loved more than anything or anyone in the world.

Damn sure more than his daughter.

* * *

Plunging into the chatter and bustle of ropers and horses in and around the arena was like jumping into a lake after a long, parched day. Shawnee could feel her soul expanding as she soaked up the laid-back atmosphere, so different than the intensity of the rodeo performances. She owed Cole a hefty chunk of her sanity for this, but she could pay him back in fried chicken and dinner rolls.

As she started to join the parade of ropers circling the arena, a familiar white horse jogged up beside her. Mariah grinned from Salty’s back. She was dressed almost exactly like Shawnee—jeans, T-shirt, curls corralled in the back loop of a baseball cap—but Mariah’s jeans were the hundred-dollar super-bling variety, her cap was studded with rhinestones, and her turquoise T-shirt clung to her jaw-dropping curves. Beside her Shawnee felt like a dusty blob, even though she had made more than the usual effort with her makeup, and the peach-colored shirt was one of her favorites.

She focused on Mariah’s horse instead. “You’re roping on Salty?”

“Cole says he was a heading horse when they bought him and he probably hasn’t forgotten how.” Mariah lifted the nylon rope in her hand. “Wanna enter up with me?”

“Sure.”

Barrel racing might be her ultimate end game, but Mariah had won high school championships as a roper, and it would give Shawnee one familiar partner. For the other four that she was allowed, she would be at the mercy of a random draw. Plus now she would have someone to talk to between runs. Short of having Tori appear, it was as good as the day could get.

Plus, Ace would be watching her rope for the first time since she was thirteen. She shoved that thought aside. She no longer gave a shit about impressing him. Right?

Right, goddammit.

Half an hour later, the draw lists were posted and the local announcer called for the ropers to clear the arena, then read off the names of the first twenty teams.

“Team number eighteen, Mariah Swift and Shawnee Pickett.”

At the sound of their names, a cheer went up from the grandstand. Shawnee twisted around in her saddle to see the entire Jacobs crew parked in the shade high up under the roof. Yes, even Ace, who had joined the Leses in a card game, using the usual beer cooler as a table. She’d be worried that he might skin them, but Cole and Tyrell lounged against the upper railing, with their long legs stretched out across the benches below like two powerful lions keeping a lazy eye on their pride. Katie was planted between them, chin up, the coolest dog in five states.

The rest sprawled around a picnic lunch—buckets of chicken and what looked like the works, judging by the number of tubs. Analise toasted the ropers with one of her radioactive energy drinks. A person had to wonder if caffeine overload contributed to the girl’s tendency to be verbally assaulted by prime digits. Or at least turned up the volume.

Hank did a Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh! football cheer, using a drumstick as a pom-pom. Mariah responded with one of her regal, mock rodeo queen waves. Half of the ropers in the arena turned to look. And Shawnee…blushed?

Swinging down off her horse, she did an unnecessary check of her cinches. She even had a lump in her throat. What the hell?

Maybe, she admitted grudgingly, she was a wee bit touched by the moral support. Granted, none of the crew had anything better to do, but a marathon team roping was most often likened to watching paint dry. Not exactly high drama if you weren’t personally invested. In their place, she’d be shaded up cool, taking a nap. Instead, Analise and Hank were holding up a sign scrawled on the back of a rodeo poster that said We Love S & M.

Shawnee laughed, even as she blushed a little harder. It was bizarre, having a cheering squad. She’d had friends and college teammates who’d slap her on the back when she made a good run. And of course her mother and grandparents had always been there for her when she was younger, but they were more of the hold your breath and cross your fingers types. This—

She frowned. This felt like Cole’s doing—the food, the whole happy family gathered together. If it had been her, it would have been part of a larger plot to irritate him, but the man was incapable of being truly devious. Which meant he was just being thoughtful. Or some other noble bullshit that made her squirm.

Nothing about Cole Jacobs should be making her that kind of squirmy.

The announcer called the first team to rope, and Shawnee gathered up her wayward thoughts and weird emotions and shoved them deep down into her pocket, where they wouldn’t interfere with the moment. The sun was shining, she had a good horse underneath her and steers to rope. She intended to savor every minute of it.

When their turn came, Shawnee settled Roy into the box on the right hand side of the chute, and watched Mariah ride in on the left. Salty backed into the corner like an old pro, quiet but alert. Shawnee waited, focusing on the steer. Her job was to get out there and haze the animal so it ran as straight as possible, giving Mariah a better shot while putting Roy in position for Shawnee to have a quick throw.

The chute banged open and the steer lit out, straight and not too fast. Salty caught up easily and Mariah took a good, high percentage throw, her loop snapping around the horns. She wrapped the tail of her rope around the saddle horn and went left, towing the steer along. Shawnee swooped in, laid a wide open loop under its belly, and waited for him to hop into it. She held her slack high as the rope came snug around his back feet, then she dallied up as Mariah swung Salty around to face her.

As the judge’s flag dropped to signal for time, a chorus of whoops and howls broke out from their cheering section. Shawnee pretended to ignore them, exchanging a thumbs-up with Mariah, instead. They weren’t super fast, but they were solid, and if they could do it again in the second and third rounds, they’d get paid.

Hot damn, she loved this game.

Two hours later, two hundred and eighteen teams had been whittled down to twenty. Neither Mariah nor Shawnee had had any luck with their other partners, but together they were in third place, with a realistic shot at first if the teams ahead of them stubbed a toe. As their names were announced, they got more shouts of encouragement from their fan club. Though the others had wandered in and out during the interminable competition, the core group—Cole, Tyrell, Analise, and Hank—had hung tough through the whole thing.

Shawnee refused to glance their direction as she rode in the roping box. Focus. Timing. The familiar mantra beat in her head in time with the heavy thuds of her heart, the volume pumped up by adrenaline.

At the bang of the chute, Roy was off. Mariah’s approach and throw were carbon copies of her first two loops. Shawnee rode Roy around the corner and into the sweet spot at the steer’s hip, swinging in time with his strides so when she released her rope, his hind feet bounced right into the loop. She pulled her slack, dallied up, and felt the jolt as the steer hit the end.

Snap! The judge’s flag dropped and he made a slicing motion through the air. Clean run. And the crowd went wild.

As she rode forward and released her dally, Shawnee looked up at the grandstand. The goofy bastards had arranged themselves in a single line, shortest to tallest, and when the announcer declared that Pickett and Swift had taken over the lead, they did a perfectly executed wave, with Cole at the peak.

Shawnee burst out laughing. Geezus. What a bunch of idiots. But the warm glow around her heart wasn’t just about roping well. Then she looked again, and against all reason, her little happy bubble deflated with a pathetic hiss.

Ace was gone. And she shouldn’t care, but damned if she could stop herself.

Besides, just because he’d left the grandstand didn’t mean he’d walked away right before his daughter was due to rope in the short round. Maybe he’d headed down by the chutes to get a closer look. Shawnee rode out of the arena, exchanged a fist bump with Mariah, and forced herself not to scan the faces along the fences as she watched the last two teams go. One miss, then a good run that dropped her and Mariah to second place. They’d take it.

“Way to turn ’em, Hotshot,” Shawnee said, punching Mariah lightly in the leg.

“Thank you! That was awesome.” Mariah reached up to rub Salty’s forelock. “This guy was a total stud.”

“He always is.”

Shawnee stepped off Roy, gave him some extra lovin’, then loosened the cinches and started for her trailer. And that’s when she saw Ace, holding court over a gaggle of old-timers under the awning of a nearby horse trailer.

He glanced up, saw her, and smiled. “Is it over? How did you do?”

Shawnee stared at him. How could he not…didn’t he even…fuck.

“Not good, huh?” He grimaced sympathetically, then blessed her with a patronizing smile. “We can break it down later. Figure out what you’re doing wrong.”

As if he, oh wise and knowing Yoda, could fix anything that ailed her roping. She shook her head and kept walking before any of the raw, hateful words clawed out of her throat. Curses and accusations that would only embarrass her and anyone else caught in the crossfire, without leaving a mark on Ace. She ducked her head and blinked hard, fighting idiotic tears that should’ve dried up an eternity ago.

Geezus. She was no smarter than her mother.

“Hey!”

She came up short as she plowed into Cole, coming around from the grandstand side of the arena. He narrowed his eyes at her over the cooler he was carrying. “You’re all red-faced. You didn’t get overheated again, did you?”

“No, I just—” She glanced over her shoulder toward Ace, then up at Cole, all brawny and predictable and there—always there—and blurted, “Would you have dinner with me tonight?”

He blinked, then frowned, suspicious. “Why?”

Good question. With answers she’d rather not examine too closely, so she went with the easy one. “Ace won’t dare come around if you’re there.”

Cole shot a dark look in Ace’s direction. Obviously, he’d witnessed the utter lack of fatherly devotion, but he still hesitated.

“I won’t even talk.” Shawnee made a sign over her heart. “Scout’s honor.”

Cole’s eyebrows shot up, and his mouth twitched. “That I’ve gotta see. What time?”

“Six.” She jerked her chin at the cooler. “You bring the beer.”