Reckless in Texas (25 page)

The scrape of knife against plate in Dick Browning's otherwise silent kitchen grated like a serrated blade on Joe's nerves. Which, granted, were so raw he could barely tolerate the sound of his own breathing. He set his fork aside and swabbed up the last of his gravy with one of Helen's home-baked rolls, the likes of which he'd never had until he met Iris Jacobs.

Of course, if good company really made everything taste better, it wasn't a fair comparison. Helen had given up trying to make conversation five minutes into the meal and Dick Browning was stubbornly silent, his mere presence as abrasive as the shaved stubble of gray hair on his head. If he'd ever had any soft edges, they'd been worn away a million miles ago, leaving only gristle and bone.

He pushed his plate aside, stuck a toothpick between his teeth, and tipped his chair back. “I'm finishing up next year's contracts. I assume we can plan on you for all the usual rodeos?”

As if the fight in Puyallup had never happened. Dick intended to just go on, business as usual, and expected everyone else to do the same. No harm. No foul. And why not? It had always worked that way before.

Joe's knuckles went white around his coffee mug. Goddamn Wyatt and his
perspective
. He'd known—or at least hoped—that this would happen. They'd ruined him down there in Texas. Stripped away his layers of protective cynicism with their hospitality and honest regard, and left him wide open. Too sensitive. Too aware. Now, sitting in a kitchen that managed to be cold and dingy despite all of Helen's efforts to the contrary, he could see the future much too clearly.

Yeah, Joe could step right back into his place here at the ranch, and at Dick's rodeos. All it would cost was everything he wanted to be as a man. A human being. Dick wasn't going to bend an inch. Wouldn't, couldn't—it didn't matter which anymore. Joe had run out of excuses, justifications, tolerance. As he'd always said, Dick was Dick, take him or leave him.

So now, Joe had to leave.

He let the thought settle, grim and undeniable, like a frozen rock in the pit of his stomach. Then he peeled his hand off the mug, crossed his arms and leaned back, mimicking Dick's posture. His pulse pounded in his temples and his lungs burned as he held a match to the fuse that would blow this particular bridge out of the water, but he sounded amazingly calm. “I've had a lot of offers. Accepted a few. I'll have to see what else I can squeeze in.”

Dick's eyes went squinty, the grooves around his mouth digging so deep they nearly cut through the leathery flesh. The legs of his chair thumped to the floor and he spit his toothpick onto his plate. “Is this your way of tryin' to squeeze more money out of me?”

“No.”

Dick's head jerked at the flat tone, as if Joe had thrown a legitimate offer back in his face. Joe shouldn't have been surprised. It always came down to the money with Dick. “Well, I can't twiddle my thumbs while you're dithering around, waiting for the highest bid,” Dick snapped.

“Then find someone else.” The words felt like jagged pieces of his soul, ripped out one by one.

For a moment, Dick just glared. Then he stood, grabbed his hat from the rack and jammed it onto his head. “I've got work to do.”

He didn't ask if Joe planned to help, which pretty much said it all. The door cracked into the frame behind him, followed by the bang of Helen's coffee mug onto the table. “That miserable old bastard. He'd cut his tongue out of his head before he'd admit how much he needs you around here.”

She heaved out of her chair, multiple chins quivering in fury. The eyes that usually sparkled with good humor were spitting fire as she snatched up plates and slapped silverware on top. She dumped the pile of dishes in the sink with a clatter loud enough to make Joe flinch.

“A man who can't admit he made a mistake doesn't deserve to call himself one. Best thing for you, getting out of here.”

Tell that to his gut when it felt like it was turning inside out, threatening to reject everything he'd just eaten. He shoved his chair back and stood, knowing there were things he should say, but at a loss. The end had come too quickly, and too quietly. After all the years, all the miles, there should be more. Shaking fists, shouting, a decade and a half of suppressed rage and frustration, exploding into words.

He should have known Dick wouldn't even allow him that much satisfaction. That much importance.

A long, weary sigh trickled out of him. He didn't have the energy to fake a smile. “Thanks for lunch. I'm going to miss your pot roast. I probably will waste away to nothing without you to feed me.”

Helen studied him for a long moment. Then she dropped her dish towel, walked over and gave him a hug, wrapping her bulk around him like a warm blanket. When she stepped back, tears glistened in her eyes. “You've been the best thing about this place for a long time, Joe Cassidy. I'm not sure if I'll be able to stand it with you gone.”

While he tried to muster a response, she grabbed the leftover beef off the table, carried it to the counter and covered it with aluminum foil, her movements swift and efficient.

“I don't know when I'll get your dish back to you,” Joe said, as she pressed the plate into his hands.

“Leave it at the bar. I'll pick it up.” She squeezed his arm. “Take care, Joe. Better yet, break down and let someone else give it a try.”

Yeah. Like people were lining up for that job. He lifted the plate. “Thanks for this. I'll see you…around.”

Helen patted his shoulder. “Be sure to say hello. And Joe? If you ever need anything—a meal, an ear to bend—you just let me know.”

“I'll keep it in mind.”

He walked outside, set the plate on the hood of his Jeep and braced his hands on the car as he drank in the landscape. Clouds hung low, trailing shreds of fog through the draws, the sky a solid sheet of gray that sucked what little color there was out of the parched brown hills. The air was dry and brittle in his lungs, the chilly breeze whistling across the flat and through the yard. Joe hunched his shoulders against its bite, but still he stood, trying to imprint the scene on his mind. Down in the corral, the newly weaned colts wandered around, bickering amongst themselves and nosing at the hay in the feeder, bewildered by their unexpected change in circumstances.

Joe could relate. It didn't hurt as bad as he'd expected, though. It was worse. Like having his guts carved out, leaving nothing inside him but a massive, hemorrhaging wound. A giant vise squeezing his chest until it cracked right down the middle. He dragged in a lungful of the sage-scented air, held it as if he could absorb the molecules into his bones, but it wasn't his to keep any more than the land. It never had been. Judging by the way he felt right now, losing it all might actually kill him.

His gaze was glued to the rearview mirror as he drove slowly away, until he topped the last rise and the High Lonesome disappeared.

Back in town, Main Street was scattered with the usual assortment of battered ranch pickups and dusty SUVs, nobody in a big hurry to get anywhere on a Thursday afternoon. Joe flipped his turn signal on to circle around to his parking space in the alley behind the Mint Bar, then flipped it off again when he caught a flash of gleaming, fire engine red at the curb out front. A '69 Camaro with a broad white racing stripe up the middle and
BLLDNCR
on the vanity plates
.

Bull dancer. Hell.

Joe parked behind the Camaro. He felt weird walking in the front door of the Mint instead of the back hallway, adjacent to the stairs down from his apartment. He paused on the threshold to nod hello to the bartender and take note of the crutches leaning beside the only man sitting at the battered wooden bar.

“Nice haircut,” Wyatt said. “Planning to buy a suit and go door-to-door selling Bibles?”

Joe pulled off his hat and ran a hand over his head. “It isn't any shorter than yours.”

“Yeah, but I've got choir boy in my genes. It suits me.”

Joe slid onto the next barstool and nodded at Wyatt's ankle. “Is it broken?”

“Just a chip off the end of my ankle bone. The plate held where it was broken before.”

So no surgery. Some good news in an otherwise shitty day.

“Whatcha need, Joe?” the bartender called down, with an eye still on the television.

“Coke.” Joe assumed Wyatt's glass held the same. They'd outgrown the days of afternoon drinking that stretched into an all-night binge. “Did you drive all the way down here to insult my hair?”

“Nah, but that was almost worth the trip.” Wyatt plugged one end of his straw with a finger, lifted it from his glass, and sucked it dry, his gaze dissecting Joe the whole time. “How'd it go with Dick?”

“I quit.” When Wyatt didn't say anything, Joe slanted him a bitter smile. “What? No victory dance?”

“I've got a broken ankle and you look like you just had to shoot your best horse.”

Joe jabbed his straw into his glass. Wondered what the bartender would say if he asked for a shot of grenadine, like the Rob Roys his mother used to buy for him here when they had something to celebrate. Yee-haw. He was moving on up whether he wanted to or not.

“Fifteen years,” he said, stabbing an ice cube. “Half my life, I've worked on that ranch. I saw most of those horses and bulls born. Watched them grow up. I've hiked or ridden every inch of that ground, strung damn near every strand of barbed wire on the place. How do you expect me to feel?”

Wyatt didn't answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet. “It's hard for me to relate. I've never felt that way about a chunk of land.”

A chunk of land—like it was just dirt and didn't have a soul of its own. Joe almost felt bad for Wyatt. Wouldn't it be worse to have never felt grounded, even if being uprooted ripped you in two? Joe watched bubbles weave between the ice cubes in his glass, wishing it was something stronger than Coke. What did it matter? Wasn't like he had any place to be tomorrow. Or the next day.

They sat in silence, listening to the clink of ice in their glasses, the bartender grumbling under his breath at a defendant on one of those afternoon Judge Somebody shows.

“I'm still not sorry I sent you down there,” Wyatt said. “It was good for you.”

Yeah, just fucking great. It wasn't enough, losing the High Lonesome. Might as well toss in those cold sweats every time he let himself remember how he'd put his hand on Violet's stomach, imagined a baby there, and thought
Mine.
Icy fingers clamped around his windpipe and it was all he could do not to claw at his throat.

He jammed his hand into his pocket, dragged out a few dollars, and slapped them on the bar. “Hey, Chuck, toss me a bag of cashews, would ya?”

With a side of whiskey. Booze wouldn't fix anything, but if he drank enough of it he might stop smelling and tasting and feeling Violet with every cell in his body.

“There are other ranches,” Wyatt said.

“Perfect. I could get my ass kicked down the road again in another five or ten years.”

“Not if you're part owner.” Wyatt shot an arm out and intercepted the bag of cashews the bartender tossed to Joe, ripped it open and helped himself to a few before passing it on. “There are plenty of contractors out there who'd be willing to take on a partner in exchange for an infusion of cash.”

“I don't have that kind of money.” Yet.

“Close enough to borrow the difference.”

Joe froze, cashews scattering onto the bar from the bag he'd upended onto his palm. “How do you know?”

“You leave your statements sitting around. How can I not look? What do you live on, peanut butter and ramen noodles?” Wyatt made a thoughtful face, ignoring Joe's glare. “Frank's been kicking my broker's ass for the past three years. I don't suppose he'd consider managing my portfolio?”

“Only if he marries your mother.”

Wyatt grimaced. “I wouldn't even wish that on Dickhead. But if you need more capital, Frank would finance you in a heartbeat. He probably keeps that much in his checking account.”

Joe wouldn't be surprised. He also wouldn't dream of asking. Too damn awkward to be in business with Frank when Roxy decided to bail again. A smart man didn't get his money tangled up with his personal life.

Wyatt took a slow, casual sip, then said, “I heard there's an outfit in Texas looking to expand.”

The icy claws drove straight into Joe's spinal cord. “They don't want my money.”

Could he even buy his way back into Violet's good graces after what he'd done, lighting out of her bed like a stray cat with a belly full of gunpowder and a fuse up his ass? Except she hadn't been pissed. Hadn't seemed fazed at all. She'd just shrugged it off, like it didn't matter. Like he didn't matter.

“Why not? Violet is perfect—”

“And I'm not. I've got nothing she needs.”

Wyatt popped a cashew in his mouth, chewed, eyeing Joe as he lined up his argument. “A woman doesn't need a man who's honest, reliable, works hard, and is crazy about her?”

“I'm not—”

“Bullshit. On top of all that, you're damn good with bucking stock.”

Joe stabbed viciously at an ice cube with his straw. “And I suck at relationships.”

“How do you know? You've never had one.”

“My point exactly. I don't even have a role model. Every relationship I've been anywhere near has gone to hell.” He shot a glare at Wyatt. “Including yours, brain child. And I'm not gonna practice on Violet, even if she was interested in letting me.”

Wyatt's mouth twitched. “So…what? You're saving yourself for a girl you don't like?”

Joe shoved him off the barstool. Wyatt landed on his feet, cursing when his injured ankle had to bear weight.

“Hey! No picking on the wounded.”