by Maisey Yates
And Jamie...
Jamie had herself.
Fundamentally, that was what she’d always had.
It was what she could count on. That her own shoulders were broad enough to carry whatever got sat down on them. That her own legs were solid enough to support her.
And it would be true when she left.
When she went out on the road with the rodeo, and figured out if she could get her own kind of glory barrel racing, away from Wyatt’s influence and reputation.
One thing she knew for certain was that she didn’t want to be poor, motherless Jamie Dodge.
And if she had to leave to figure that out... Well, then she would.
CHAPTER FOUR
“HOW IS YOUR new hire working out?”
Gabe looked across the table and at his brother Caleb. They were sitting smack in the middle of a very crowded Gold Valley Saloon. It was midweek, but the local crowd didn’t much mind what day of the week it was.
Around here, the nine-to-fivers were rare. There were shopkeepers who worked weekends, mill workers who worked all hours, ranchers who never took a day off.
It didn’t need to be a Friday night to hit the bar. The beer just needed to be cold.
“She’s fine,” he responded. “A little on the mean side.”
Mean. Spirited. Compelling.
And the heat between them could start a damned campfire.
At least on his end.
He wouldn’t be surprised if all Jamie felt for him was annoyance.
Caleb chuckled. “She’s a Dodge. What did you expect?”
Yeah, he supposed Caleb had a good point. Not that the Dodges were mean so much, but they had stubborn streaks, and they were pretty notorious for it.
“Glad you could make it out,” Gabe said.
Caleb stretched in his chair. “Yeah, I think we’re getting sent out to Montana in the next couple of weeks. The wildfires over there are picking up already.”
“Where’s Jacob?” he asked.
His brother had been noncommittal about coming out when they’d talked earlier, but he’d figured Caleb might have some success dragging his ass out.
Jacob and Caleb had always been close. They were Irish twins, both younger than Gabe and hell on two legs from the time they could walk.
His brothers had gotten into fighting wildfires after their short careers in the rodeo, and as great as he thought it was for them, it didn’t hold the same appeal for Gabe.
Maybe because as good as his brothers had been at bronc riding, they hadn’t risen to the top the way that he had. They hadn’t had the passion for it. He had no doubt that if Jacob and Caleb put their minds to it, and decided they wanted to really compete with him, they would have.
But they didn’t want to. The same way he didn’t want to camp around fire lines in burning wilderness for a month at a time.
“You know...brooding or whatever.”
“Damn.” Gabe shook his head and took a long pull on his beer. “How long is he going to carry this?”
Caleb shrugged. “Clint was like a brother to us. And he left behind a hell of a lot more than either one of us would have. Jacob carries that. He can’t let go of it.”
“He takes living with guilt to another level,” Gabe commented, shaking his head.
It shocked Gabe that Jacob had responded to Clint’s death the way he had. Not because it wasn’t a tragedy, but because Jacob had taken living life with no responsibilities to a whole other level.
Gabe knew people thought rodeo cowboys were adrenaline junkies—and they were, no doubt about it—but Jacob was something else.
He’d been a paramedic, a rodeo rider and then a firefighter. Rodeo hadn’t had the life-or-death stakes Jacob seemed to look for.
But then Clint had died in a helicopter crash during one of the wildfires, and Jacob had changed. Completely.
His brother pushed his baseball cap back on his head, a black one emblazoned with a logo for the Logan County Fire Department.
“Clint was another Dalton brother, as far as I’m concerned,” Caleb said, his voice rough. “He meant the world to me, and to Jacob. Having to tell Ellie what had happened...” Caleb shook his head. “That was the damned worst thing I’ve ever had to do. I miss Clint. I hate that he’s gone. But I think Jacob feels responsible. Responsible for getting Clint hooked on the firefighting. And because he was supposed to be at that fire...”
“Sure, and if he’d been in the helicopter he would be dead. And we wouldn’t even have a kid of his to remember him by. I miss Clint, too.” Clint Bell had spent every day after school at their place, running around in front of their house, in the fields. Everywhere. He ate at their table almost every night, and slept over whenever he could.
He truly had been a Dalton in many ways. The lack of him now was something Gabe felt every time they sat down to a holiday dinner. Every time they had a barbecue.
He’d never lost a person he’d loved before, and the gaping hole it left in everything sometimes took Gabe’s breath away.
When Clint had married Ellie, she’d become part of their family, too, and she still was.
Jacob and Caleb were the closest brothers, and they’d always shared everything. They seemed to have split their pain over Clint’s loss in half. Jacob bearing some kind of burden of responsibility that had turned him into a gruff lone wolf. And Caleb doing everything he could to care for Ellie and her daughter.
“Yeah, I know.” Caleb took another drink. “But you have to let him do it his way.”
“Well, I guess that’s fair enough. He isn’t going to just up and do it our way because we tell him to. He’s just like you that way.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
Gabe looked at his younger brother and managed to, somehow, not laugh his ass off at him. They all looked alike. Hair differing shades of brown, eyes the same Dalton blue.
“Because I wouldn’t. None of us would. We are all just a shade too stubborn for that bullshit.”
“Tough to say if we get it from Hank or Tammy,” Caleb said, shaking his head.
“I expect we split the difference between the two. Tough news for anyone who has to deal with us.”
“I suppose McKenna might be a little more even-tempered than the rest of us as a result. Since she’s only got Hank’s DNA.”
“Who the hell knows what her mother was like,” Gabe said, reluctant to think about his half sister right now. Which was stupid. He had felt a connection to her pretty instantly when she had shown up at the ranch the first day Jamie had stopped by to get a tour of the place. McKenna had come along and dropped her bombshell, and Gabe had done his very best as the oldest brother to pave the way for his younger half sister. To try to set up a meeting with Hank and feel out the situation. And then Hank had been a dick and told her that he didn’t want his wife to know about her. Had given her money and sent her on her way.
Gabe and his father had not had a fight like that since Gabe was in high school. If they’d ever had one quite that vicious at all.
Gabe had been ready to blow the whole thing up himself, and ultimately, it was that threat that had seen Hank calling a family meeting and confessing his sins to their mother.
That had been a fight. One that Tammy had never let McKenna see evidence of.
Tammy was everything you could expect a good redneck woman to be. She was tough, and she was fierce, but she was also fair.
When she got angry, she directed it at the person who deserved it, and no one else. But boy, when she was pissed the woman breathed fire.
Gabe could remember one time his mother had been the inspiration for a country song, out of their driveway with a baseball bat, sending their dad’s new truck to an early grave.
But after the explosion of anger, sadness hadn’t been far behind. And Gabe had been the o
nly one she’d ever shown that vulnerability to.
She’d needed a protector. And Hank had never been that.
In some ways, Gabe felt that as long as he protected his mother he was finding some way around that stamp of sameness Hank Dalton had left in his blood.
Tammy hadn’t lit anything on fire when she found out about McKenna, so there was that. But he supposed that you could only be so angry about a mistake that was obviously twenty-seven years in the past.
It wasn’t as if Hank’s philandering was news at that point, anyway.
He truly did believe that ever since his mom had made her ultimatum, Hank had been as faithful as promised. Mostly because Tammy was a bloodhound, especially after years of being betrayed, and at this point, she would have not only found out, she would have made sure the entire town of Gold Valley knew about it, too. So there was no way anything had happened that Gabe and his brothers didn’t know about.
Still, with all of that, McKenna, her appearance and her existence, shouldn’t be a negative to Gabe in any way, and mostly it wasn’t.
But she did remind him. Of what his father was, what he’d always been.
“Yeah, she seems pretty scrappy to me,” Gabe said, taking a swig of his beer.
“What is your plan with the ranch?” Caleb asked, the sudden subject change throwing Gabe for a loop.
“To take on the rodeo horses. Get them rehomed. There’s no reason not to. And anyway, it’s something that... Dad used to talk about it. All the horses that ended up without a place. I figured... It’s as good a time as any to get that up and running. But I want someone else to manage it. I’ve still got some years left in me on the circuit.”
“And you still like it?”
That was an interesting question.
He was good at it.
That was kind of the bottom line. He had known what he didn’t want. He hadn’t wanted to do what Hank had asked him to do. He hadn’t wanted to knuckle down and study more and go to school. Hadn’t wanted to make better of himself in the way that his father thought he should.
He wanted to be a rancher. A cowboy.
And when his dad had made it very clear he wasn’t going to support that, Gabe had refused to let his dad manipulate him in that way. It had come together perfectly in many ways. He’d gotten a petty kind of revenge on his dad and he’d made a real living out there riding saddle bronc. Had bought himself some independence.
He was damn good at it, too. A champion.
He’d done better than most men had, and even without his father paying him to run the ranch stuff these days, he was well able to afford a venture like that.
Plus, the house that he lived in away from his father’s property. His own, much smaller parcel of land.
He wasn’t sure what he wanted mattered so much as what worked. And right now the rodeo worked. So he might as well chase that.
“I’m going to want the money later,” he said, lifting a shoulder. “And don’t lecture me about safety, or my body breaking down, or any of that shit. You jump out of helicopters into infernos.”
Caleb laughed. “I’m not about to lecture you about any of that. Hell, I’d try to recruit you, if I thought you would go for it.”
“Why do you do it?”
“Something to do,” Caleb said. “Something that’s not Dad’s.”
Gabe shook his head. “Yeah. Well. Maybe if I do it enough people will think of me instead of him when they hear our name tied to saddle bronc.” He shook his head again. “I love that old bastard. But he...”
“Yeah, it’s complicated,” Caleb said. “He’s the best and the worst all at once. I’ve never known anyone who could make a group of people laugh so hard. And if you need a fence fixed or a barn raised—”
“He’s there. And he probably gave money to help.”
“He’s also a tool.”
“Hell, yes.”
Hank Dalton was complicated. A selfish man who seemed to act to satisfy his every appetite. Who seemed to conveniently forget he had a wife and kids when a woman flashed a smile at him.
He was also charming. Funny and irreverent. Generous with time and money. His lack of class and over-the-top sense of style—evident in every gaudy corner of the family home—a testament to the fact that you could take the man out of the trailer park but you couldn’t take it out of the man.
He was gold-plated and down-to-earth all at the same time. A bastard and an angel.
“I think we are justified in deciding we want our legacy to be something a little bit different, don’t you?” Caleb asked.
“I guess so.”
“So your aim with Jamie is to have her be the...manager?”
“I don’t know if that’s what I’d call her. But she’d be in charge of the horses. She’s great with the animals. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” It reminded him of something he used to be. Or maybe something he could have been. But time changed people. And he didn’t think he could ever be that idealistic kid he had been. There were too many years and bad decisions standing between him and that boy he’d been.
It made him wonder what the hell he was now.
“Well, best of luck to you.”
“Thanks,” Gabe said, shaking his head, mostly at himself.
He drained the rest of his beer and figured he had time for another one. Even if he had to have his brother drive him home, it would be worth it.
He was antsy to get out of here. That was the problem. Badly wanted to be back out on the road, where he could drink hard and ride hard. Where he could find an endless supply of anonymous women to fill his time in his bed.
There was a restlessness in him, and he didn’t know what to do with it.
He often wondered if it was the same restlessness that lived inside Hank Dalton.
It made him understand. And the last thing he wanted to do was understand his old man. That was too close to sanctioning his behavior, and Gabe could never imagine doing that.
“I want another drink,” he said, standing up.
“Am I your designated driver?” Caleb looked disgusted.
“If you have a problem with that... You should yell at Jacob for not coming.”
A smile tipped up the corner of Caleb’s mouth. “Yeah, I suppose so. Though we could also see if we can ferret him out to get him to play designated driver.”
“Now, that,” Gabe said, slapping his hand on the table, “is a good idea.”
There was a buzzing sound, and Caleb leaned back and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Dammit,” he said.
“What? Is there a fire you have to get out to?” Gabe asked.
“No,” he said. “That would come over the radio. It’s just Ellie. Amelia is sick,” he said. “Ellie was just wondering if I was able to go out and get some pain reliever.” He typed a response then waited a moment, shifting in his chair. “I’m just going to get her some.”
“We just got here,” Gabe said.
“I know,” Caleb said. “What exactly do you want Ellie to do? Drag Amelia out to the store when she isn’t feeling well? So that I can sit here and drink as late as I want? That would be an asshole move.”
Gabe sighed. “Yeah, okay, fair enough. I’ll hold that drink.”
“Sorry,” Caleb said. “But you know...she doesn’t have him. She should.”
“Don’t tell me you feel responsible for it, too,” Gabe said, shaking his head.
“No,” Caleb said, his voice rough. “I feel responsible for her.”
“All right, then. Let’s get going.”
They stood and Gabe settled the tab on the way out. And the whole way back to Caleb’s truck, Gabe wondered.
What it must be like to have such wholehearted dedication to something.
Jacob had his guilt. Caleb had Ellie.
Gabe was ca
ught between a career he’d never loved and a ranch that he still didn’t control.
And that was starting to feel unacceptable.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN JAMIE ARRIVED at the barn the next morning, Gabe was nowhere to be seen. But there was a list of assignments left out for her. The first of which were easy enough. Take Gus and Lola and ride them around. Take Gus up on a trail ride and see how he fared.
Then there were a few ranch chores that she was a little bit less experienced with. One of which included replacing the motor on one of the automatic gates on the property. The part was next to the instructions, and she squared her shoulders.
“Just figure it out,” she said out loud to only herself.
He was treating her like a ranch hand, the way that she had asked to be treated. And Wyatt and Bennett and Grant were wrong.
People didn’t see her as a lost little girl.
Gabe wouldn’t have left a motor and minimal instruction for a lost little girl. He wouldn’t have even done that for a lady, she didn’t figure.
So whatever had happened yesterday with him opening the door and all that... It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because he was wrong.
She frowned, moving first to Lola’s stall and nickering softly to get the animal’s attention. The pretty gray mare lifted her head, and Jamie smiled. She was a beautiful horse. Dappled and lovely, with kind eyes and an easy disposition.
Jamie could hardly imagine the horse being used in the rodeo. She just seemed too mellow for the bursts of energy required.
Jamie didn’t have a problem with the way the animals were treated in the rodeo. She knew that they were expensive and valued, if not just for their monetary worth, but because the men and women who cared for them, who rode them, spent more time with animals than they did with people. There was a deep appreciation for them, and a whole lot of pressure to keep them healthy and in top form.
That was the good thing about taking on animals like this. At their age, though they’d led athletic lives, they had also been given vitamins and vet checks, and a great many things that horses left out in fields often didn’t have the benefit of.