Reckless in Texas (19 page)

As soon as the announcer's voice woke Joe, he knew he was screwed. He'd promised to help Violet this morning, and one glance at the clock told him he'd slept through most of the slack. He dragged on the first clothes he found and bailed out of the truck. Violet was nowhere in sight, but Beni was slouched on a bench outside the rodeo office, looking like an abandoned puppy.

Joe hesitated. He was a total novice when it came to kids, and this one struck him as advanced-class material, but he couldn't just walk past without saying anything. “What's the problem, big guy?”

Beni rolled his eyes up to give Joe a sullen look. “Grandma's too busy to get me a snack.”

Joe glanced into the office. Iris was tapping at the keys of her laptop, a cell phone stuck to her ear and a frown on her face.

“Where's your mom?” Joe asked, like he was only trying to be helpful and not desperate to see her.

“Sorting steers because the gate man is drunk.”

Crap. That didn't sound good. Iris hung up the phone, muttering something under her breath that wasn't appropriate Sunday morning talk. Her eyes lit up when she spotted Joe.

“Could you watch Beni while I find Cole? Steve's got…well, he's not feeling so hot, and now next week's committee wants to add a rookie bareback riding event, and I can't give them an answer.”

“Uh—”

“Thank you.” She shut and locked the office door, hustling away before he had a chance to utter a complete word.

Joe looked at Beni. Beni looked back, equally skeptical about the arrangement. Then he heaved another sigh. “I'm still hungry.”

Oh hell. He could at least buy the kid a snack. Come to think of it, he was starving, too. “We can grab something at the concession stand. What do you want?”

Beni perked up. “A Snickers.”

“How ‘bout a pancake?” Joe countered.

“I already had one of those.” His eyes narrowed, wheels spinning in his head. The word conniving crossed Joe's mind, but geez, the kid was five. “Maybe some popcorn?”

Well, it wasn't candy, and it was made of corn, which made it a vegetable. That was good, right? They went to the nearest concession stand, got a bag of popcorn for Beni and a burger for Joe, and brought it back to the bench in front of the rodeo office. Beni munched happily. Joe swallowed his burger in three bites and fidgeted, impatient. If Iris would come back and cut him loose, he could at least help pen and sort the stock for the performance.

“Grandma said you and my mommy went on a date,” Beni said.

Joe snapped to attention. Oh hell. What was he supposed to say? “Uh…yeah.”

“And you stayed out real late. That's why Mommy's cranky today.”

“I…guess?” Joe winced at the pathetic reply. Geezus. He really sucked at this.

Beni's eyebrows scrunched in accusation. “You better not've tried any funny business.”

Joe made a sound halfway between a choke and a laugh. He was tempted to ask what a five-year-old knew about funny business, but he was afraid of the answer. And the follow-up questions. He met Beni's gaze, keeping his own steady and somber. “No funny business.”

Beni did a classic Eastwood squint, a half-pint badass. Joe didn't flinch.
This
, he realized suddenly. This was the reason he'd had to walk away from Violet last night. So he could look her son in the eye this morning and not blink. Not lie. It was worth every aching, miserable minute since. For the first time in very long time, Joe felt…clean.

Or at least cleaner.

Beni gave him a half-nod, then slouched against the wall and shoveled in a fistful of popcorn. “Got anything good on your phone?” he mumbled through a full mouth.

“Huh?”

“Games and stuff. I get in trouble when I'm bored.”

It sounded like a threat. Having seen Beni in action, Joe was prepared to take it seriously. He pulled out his phone and handed it over. “We can download something from the app store.”

“Cool.” In less time than it took Joe to pull up a number on speed dial, Beni found what he wanted and handed the phone back to Joe.
Zombies vs. Aliens.
“Your mom lets you play this?”

“She never said I couldn't.”

Which was pretty much what Joe had told Violet after asking her dad if they could date.
Nice try, kid
. Joe tried a different tack, opening a browser and pulling up a site Wyatt had found that showed all of the wind currents rippling and eddying across the United States. The effect was mesmerizing, and would hopefully distract Beni long enough for his grandmother to get back.

“Here. Check this out.”

As Beni took the phone, Joe glanced up and saw Violet watching them. Hair straggled out of her ponytail, stuck to the sweat on her neck, and her face was flushed, a streak of dirt across one cheek and a smear of calf shit on one thigh. She stared at him as if he was holding Beni at gunpoint, then her expression went weird, sort of queasy, like she'd been punched in the stomach. Her gaze slid, fixed on Beni, and her eyes narrowed.

“Where did you get that?” She stalked over and snatched the nearly empty bag of popcorn out of Beni's hand.

“He gave it to me,” Beni whined, like Joe had forced him to take it.

Joe froze like a jackrabbit caught out in the open desert. If he kept still enough, she might find another target.

Violet crushed the bag into a ball and slam-dunked it with enough force to rock the aluminum trash can. “Did I not say you couldn't have any more today? Are you trying to make yourself sick?”

Beni ducked his head and pushed out his bottom lip. “I was hungry.”

“Because you didn't eat your breakfast, which is why I told you no more snacks until lunch.”

“I'm sorry,” Joe said. “I didn't know—”

Violet nailed him to the bench with a disgusted glare. “That's why he hit you up. You're the only one he could con.”

Perfect. First he'd been a no-show for the slack, then he'd been played by a preschooler.

Violet grabbed Beni's hand and hauled him off the bench. “You're going to the trailer, mister.” As she dragged him away, she looked over her shoulder at Joe. “And you…stay right there.”

Any man who'd ever had a mother knew that tone of voice. Joe stayed. Iris came back, her gaze falling on the empty space beside him, then rising with a question.

“Violet took him to the camper,” Joe said.

“Then the slack must be over. Thank God.” She gave him a weary smile and went on inside.

Contestants came and went, glancing curiously at Joe, some lingering to chat with Iris. Hank wandered back from wherever he'd spent the night and made himself comfortable, flirting with a couple of barrel racers while they checked the time sheets from the slack. Cole wandered in with his dog and they kicked back in the corner to share a sandwich. When Violet reappeared, Joe got up to meet her out of earshot of the crowd. She led him around the back side of the building.

“Is Beni okay?” he asked.

“Fine, until all that popcorn starts coming out the other end.”

“Oh.” Shit. Literally. Joe took off his hat, scooped his fingers over his head, then frowned when there was no hair to push out of his face. “Listen, Violet—”

She gave a quick, hard shake of her head. “Beni's a pro. Everybody falls for his song and dance somewhere along the line.”

Joe rolled the brim of his hat in his hands, unease skittering up his spine at her stony face. Not just angry. Closed. Distant. “I should have been here to help this morning. I'm sorry. I slept right through my alarm.”

“We hired you to fight bulls, not push roping calves.”

“Well yeah, but I promised—”

She folded her arms tight across her chest, her gaze glued stubbornly to the ground between them. “We've managed to get by this long without you.”

Joe slapped the hat back on his head, stung by the ice in her voice. “I'll just get out of your way, then.”

“Wait.” She reached out a hand to grab his arm, then snatched it away as if the touch burned her fingers. “We need to…talk.” She swallowed. Twice. And still her voice was husky. “I can't do this, Joe.”

His heart stuttered. “Do what?”

“This.” She circled a hand in the air to indicate the two of them. “There's not enough of me to go around right now. I need to tend to business.”

He stared at her, incredulous. “You're dumping me because I slept in?”

“No! I'm not…we weren't…” She bit her lip and averted her face. “You're leaving next week. I'm only cutting things a little short. It's just…it's better this way. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take care of my kid.”

She turned on her heel and made a beeline for her trailer, those long strides sure and swift. No hesitation. No looking back. Joe could only stare after her, stunned to the verge of paralysis. The quiet clearing of a throat pulled him out of the stupor. Hank stood at the corner of the rodeo office and the look on his face said it all.

Humiliation rained down, deepening the chill settling into Joe's bones. “You heard?”

Hank nodded toward an old swamp cooler set in the wall of the building, right next to where Joe was standing. “Sound comes right through that thing.”

Great. Once again, Violet had found a way to go public with her love life, but this time she wouldn't be the butt of the joke.

* * *

No one was in any mood to howl and pound their chest that afternoon. Steve prowled the back of the chutes like a mountain lion with a bad tooth, taking swipes at anyone who moved too slow, and Violet was stone-faced and silent behind her sunglasses. Iris's smile was strained around the edges. Even Hank was subdued. All of them kept a safe distance from Joe, as if he'd sprouted a mysterious rash and it might be contagious. The crew was in such a rush to load up and get gone, he barely had time to grab his bag out of the truck before it hit the highway.

When Cole was finally satisfied that he hadn't left so much as a spare kernel of grain behind, Hank reached for the door to the front passenger seat of the pickup. One hard look from Joe had his hand dropping. “I'll, uh, ride in back.”

For thirty minutes there was no sound in the cab except the voice of the weekly country music countdown host. Must take some powerful drugs to be that cheerful. Whatever it was, Joe needed some.

“Bull riding sucked today,” Hank said, unable to stand the silence any longer.

Cole grunted. Joe nodded. No one had made the eight-second whistle. Even the reigning Texas Circuit champion had round-assed off a belly-kicking hopper. Good thing none of them had needed help, because Joe couldn't seem to focus, a beat late with every move. Worthless as tits on a bull.

“You okay, Joe?” Hank asked.

Except for feeling like he'd thrown himself on the ground and let Dirt Eater stomp on his guts? Yeah, he was fine and dandy. He nodded again.

Another mile passed, the hiss of the air conditioner and the thump-thump of tires over the ridges in the concrete road provided accompaniment to the number twenty-three song in the countdown, while Joe stared out the window at an endless stretch of parched grass and red dirt. He'd always loved big, empty spaces. Today the infinite stretch of prairie made him feel insignificant. Invisible. Like he could walk off into all that nothing and no one would notice until he failed to show up for the next rodeo.

“Violet was having a really bad day,” Hank said. “She probably didn't mean it like she sounded. I bet if you bought her flowers or something—”

Joe cut him off with another hard stare.

Hank hunched his shoulders and looked out his own window. “You're still going home next weekend?”

“Yeah.”

The last rodeo was only fifty miles northeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The performances were Friday night and Saturday night. No reason Joe shouldn't be on the first possible flight on Sunday morning. Hell, why wait until Sunday to make himself scarce? Violet had made it clear they didn't want or need his help, so why hang around the ranch all week?

“Too bad you couldn't stay a while,” Hank said. “I bet if you did, you and Violet could—”

“Shut up, Hank,” Cole said.

Joe smiled grimly. There really was a first time for everything. For once, Cole Jacobs had managed to say exactly the right thing.

“Can I go now?” Beni asked, for the nineteenth time.

Violet gave her son a
don't mess with me
look. “You're not leaving that chair until you eat every bite.”

Beni scowled into his Monday morning cereal bowl, shoveled in the last three spoonfuls and mumbled through his full mouth, “
Now
can I go?”

“Is that how you ask?”

“Please?”

Since he'd managed to say it without an eye roll, she said, “Yes.”

He launched out of the chair and through the door at his usual breakneck speed, yesterday's popcorn overdose already a distant memory. Must be nice. If Violet's attention span were that short, she might be able to forget that, with her usual, impeccable timing, she'd blown Joe off in front of half of the Jacobs crew and a sizable number of contestants.
Nice work, Violet.
Not that she'd changed her mind about ending their…whatever it was. She'd already let it go way too far. She had to save herself. But that expression on his face…

She'd put a another dent in his ego, that's all. And she shouldn't have implied that they didn't appreciate all the extra work he'd done. She owed him an apology and the sooner the better, so she could get on with patching up the gaping hole in her heart. She set the dishes in the sink, then headed outside. The sound of shrill giggles led her around to the backyard. Cole gave Beni a shove on the swing and sent him flying so high it made Violet's breath catch. They were both grinning like fools.

The empty parking space beside Cole's cabin drew her attention and she frowned. “Where's your pickup?”

“Joe took it for a couple of days.”

She very nearly gasped again. “To go where?”

“Dunno. Said he wanted to tour around a little.” Cole shrugged. “He said he'd be careful.”

And he handed over the keys, just like that. Cole, who wouldn't even let Violet hook the thing up to the horse trailer for fear she'd scratch the bumper. “What…now you're best buddies?”

“He's good with the stock.” Cole threw an accusing glance over his shoulder. “But apparently we don't need his help, so he took off.”

Violet stared, stunned, as he gave Beni another one-handed shove that nearly launched him into orbit. Cole was
mad
at her. Because of Joe. What the freaking hell? Where was the family loyalty? Cole was supposed to defend her honor, especially against fly-by-night rodeo Romeos like Joe Cassidy.

Suddenly it was all just too damn much. Tears burned at the back of her eyes. She blinked them back and gave Cole a stern look. “I'm going to the office. Try to be a little bit careful. You break that kid, you're taking him to the emergency room.
And
paying the bill.”

* * *

Joe didn't come back Monday night. Or Tuesday. The hours crept by, worry and uncertainty spiraling tighter and tighter until by Wednesday, Violet was strung so tight if she'd had a bow, she could've played her nerves like a fiddle. Where had he gone? Was he alone? Had he dialed one of those phone numbers women constantly forced on him? She couldn't get the vision of that redhead in the Corvette out of her head. Someone like that would be just his speed…

The whole ranch had gone into a stall, as if Joe had siphoned off all the energy when he left. Her dad was still recovering from the stomach virus that had laid him low over the weekend, Cole patrolled the far reaches of the ranch, checking and repairing fences, and Iris was helping Lily organize the annual fall church bazaar. Violet had gone through all of the good-quality video they had of Dirt Eater, chosen the five best, and sent them off to Vince Grant but got only an automated confirmation in return, with no indication of when he might actually look at it.

Which left Violet…nowhere. With nobody. Usually, when she was sick of her own company, she and Beni would make a date for pizza with Delon, but for the first time ever, she wasn't sure he'd want to see her. Or if she wanted to see him. Another situation she had to resolve, but not when her emotions were raw as fresh road rash. So she went to the office and ran the McCloud figures again. She checked and rechecked all her numbers, but she couldn't conjure up cash out of nowhere.

And despite what Joe thought, she couldn't force Cole to let Dirt Eater go. She doubted she could persuade anyone else in the family to agree, either, even though they wouldn't be losing his genetics. They'd been collecting and selling Dirt Eater's semen for the past two years—making a nice little profit and setting plenty aside for themselves for future use. Plus, they had five damn good bull calves out of him, including the one permanently dubbed Flight Risk thanks to Joe. But Dirt Eater would never buck as anything but a Jacobs Livestock bull.

She smoothed the folder closed, stuffed it in the bottom drawer of her desk, and slammed it shut. She had two hours to kill before the Wednesday afternoon practice session, and a house that had been sadly neglected. As long as she was in the mood to attack something, it might as well be dirt and clutter.

Starting with Beni's room. Earbuds in place and her favorite kick-ass playlist cranked, she pulled the bed away from the wall and grimaced into the void. Good Lord. Was that a hotdog? She shuddered, scooping up the petrified wiener and aiming the vacuum hose at the crumbled remains of the bun. Why the place wasn't crawling with roaches, she'd never know.

Delon's side of the room only needed vacuuming and dusting, as usual. He never left a mess. Only one of a hundred ways he made her life better. Too bad he couldn't make her life complete.

Once their bathroom was sparkling, she stowed her cleaning supplies and traded her T-shirt for a faded plaid button down with long sleeves, yanking her hair into a ponytail as she strode out her front door. But at the bottom of the steps, she slammed on the brakes, her heart smacking into her ribs at the sudden stop.

Joe was back. He sat in the rusty metal chair on the porch of the bunkhouse adjusting the straps on his knee brace, dressed in his usual practice gear. Same T-shirt with the whacked off sleeves. Same ugly yellow gym shorts. Same god-awful haircut that looked even worse with the pink bandana headband. Same beautiful body.

A hysterical giggle welled inside her and threatened to bubble out. Why this guy? Violet Jacobs, with her previously iron-clad heart and shiny new vow to just have some fun, falling for a man determined to haul ass for another state as soon as humanly possible. She was tempted to thrust a middle finger at the sky, voicing her opinion of whatever sadistic whim of fate had dropped Joe Cassidy smack dab in the middle of her life.

He didn't acknowledge her presence, even though she'd slammed her front door and thundered like a buffalo across her deck. Was he going to pretend she didn't exist? He tugged one last strap tight, then finally looked up to meet Violet's gaze, but with the shadow of the porch roof falling across his face, she couldn't read his expression.

“You're back,” she blurted.

He stood, hitched his gear bag onto one shoulder and stepped out into the sunlight as he drawled, “Miss me, Violet?”

His smile was sharp as a razor, slicing into her heart. She was paralyzed by the brilliant arc of pain, unable to speak or move as he sauntered off toward the arena. Yeah, he was back all right. The old Joe. Arrogant. Mocking. Armed and willing to inflict damage. Forget silly gifts and that
come play with me
smile. They belonged to the other Joe. Her Joe. The one she'd chased away. Suddenly she understood what Wyatt had been trying to tell her, why he was willing to go to any lengths to pry Joe loose from the High Lonesome.

This Joe—the cold, sarcastic bastard—was exactly the man Dick Browning had made him.

And Violet, with her stupid, hurtful words, had resurrected him.

* * *

Two hours later, Violet jerked the saddle off her horse and slammed it onto a rack in the barn, her eyes so hot with unshed tears they felt like they'd been fried in lard. Her Joe. What a complete crock. That man was a figment of her imagination. The original Joe had been in fine form today, though. Laughing, bouncing around the arena, exchanging insults with Hank and tossing Violet the occasional smirk as if to say,
Hah! You think you actually hurt me?

It was all a game to him. He hadn't even tried to pretend otherwise. Joe had told her flat-out he was just fooling around and she'd been dumb enough to fall for him anyway.
Stupid, stupid Violet
. She clenched her fists, squashing down the tears one more time before striding out of the barn, making for the refuge of her house.

She slammed through the door, both glad and sorry that Beni was with his dad. She could use the company and the distraction, but her boy saw way too much. Forget sobbing into her pillow anyway. Swollen eyes and a miserable, crying-binge headache never made anything better. She shucked her dusty clothes in favor of shorts and a tank top, and donned a pair of rubber gloves instead. Her refrigerator was past due for purging. Nicely symbolic. Wash that man right out of her veggie drawer.

She jolted at the shrill of her landline, banging her head on the top shelf. Rubbing the knot, she crawled out of the bowels of the fridge to check the number on caller ID. Her mother.

“Could you run over and check the sprinklers at the other house?” Iris asked. “The automatic timer is giving me fits and I just started a batch of cinnamon rolls for breakfast.”

“Sure.” Anything to put distance between her and Joe and blow some fresh air through her addled brain.

The sun hung a scant few inches above the horizon, stretching the shadows into undulating fingers that caressed the landscape. The earlier breeze had died, the air settling cool as water in the hollows, heavy with the scent of mesquite. It streamed through the car window, playing over Violet's skin, and she pulled it deep into her lungs, letting the feel and the smell of it filter into her system like a narcotic, soothing her pain, leveling her emotions. This—the air, the sky, the land—was real. As long as she respected it, appreciated it, the land would always be here for her.

The quiet hiss of sprinklers greeted her when she stepped out of her car. The timer must have started on schedule. She strolled around the back of the house anyway. No reason to rush home to her empty house to imagine what Joe was doing next door. Except Joe wasn't in the bunkhouse. Joe had gone jogging…and made a pit stop. When she rounded the corner onto the patio his eyes went wary, his body tense, like a stray cat caught on the back step.

Violet forced a breath through the tangle of pain and need that clogged her throat. “I suppose my mother sent you.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “How'd you know?”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways. Iris Jacobs does not.”

He frowned, confused, as Violet settled into the second Adirondack chair, set at an angle so they weren't forced to look each other square in the eye, thank the Lord for small favors.

“Why would she do that?”

“Because I behaved badly and she's gonna make damn sure I have a chance to apologize.” Violet folded her hands over her churning stomach and fixed her gaze on a brilliant cluster of red chrysanthemums. She could do this. She'd practiced all night, every night while Joe was gone. “I'm sorry I was so…abrupt. I'd had the morning from hell, but that's no excuse for making you think we don't appreciate everything you've done. Like Cole said, you're really good with the stock.”

“Cole said that?”

Violet flicked the slightest of smiles his direction. “You should be flattered. The last time Cole complimented someone was around the same time he lent out his pickup. Meaning never.”

Joe let that lay, either indifferent or struck dumb. They sat in silence, Violet staring so hard at the flowers she'd be seeing red for a week, but it was either that or look at Joe and she wasn't sure her heart could take an undiluted dose of bare, glistening skin and sleek muscle.

When he did speak, his voice was completely toneless, the lack of any emotion almost worse than his sarcasm. “If I'm ever late again, just pound on my door and yell until I wake up.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” Not likely to be an issue, with only one more rodeo before he left. The thought drove another nail in her heart. “Thanks for coming back for the practice session today. The more time you spend with Hank, the better he gets.”

Joe let another few beats of silence pass. “I invited him to come up and work out with me and Wyatt while we're getting ready for the winter rodeos.”

“Wow. I bet he's thrilled.” Her voice was wooden, like the slivers jabbing into her heart. At least Hank got to see Joe again. “Are you going back to work for Dick Browning?”

Joe's mouth flattened into a hard line. “You don't toss fifteen years of hard work into the trash can because someone hurt your feelings.”

What about your self-respect?
Violet wanted to shout.
Your precious ego that was so quick to jump up and snap my head off?
“Is it really worth it?” she asked, fighting to keep the any hint of judgment out of her voice.

Joe lifted his chin and swept an arm in a wide arc. “What's all of this worth to you, Violet? How much would you tolerate to keep from leaving this ranch?”

Minimum? One badly broken heart. But it wasn't like he'd asked her to follow him anyway. “It's not that simple. Home is more than a piece of ground. This is where my family lives, and Beni's father. It's impossible to separate those things from how I feel about the ranch.”

“Yeah, well, not everybody is lucky enough to be born into the place where they belong. Some of us have to make our own.”

His eyes were so bleak, his face so grim, her heart ached in a whole different way. The High Lonesome might be Joe's dream, but it could so easily turn into a nightmare. Or worse, turn Joe into a man she couldn't even like, let alone admire, and that was unspeakably sad.