Cowboy to the Core

by Maisey Yates

  Usually, she looked pretty straight up and down, given the shape of everything she wore, but now that tank top she was wearing was clinging to her curves, sticky with sweat from earlier, and putting him in the mind of all the ways a woman might work up a sweat.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  If she could read his mind right now she’d shove the reins down his throat.

  “Hell, yeah,” he said, moving away from his moment of admiration. A moment was fine. Anything else was pushing it.

  “I’m letting you have Gus,” she said, her expression very serious. “But be aware that I’m going to give your ass a hard time if you don’t handle him well this go-round.”

  “My ass feels duly notified,” he said dryly.

  She nodded once. “Good.”

  She dropped the reins, and Gus stood steady. Gabe approached slowly, putting his hand on the horse’s neck, a strange, familiar sensation overtaking him as he did.

  The truth was, riding bucking broncos was similar to this in a lot of ways. He always took that moment. That breath. When he was on the back of the animal straining underneath him, and the gate was still closed.

  To try to get a sense for his rhythm. Of his mood. To really feel the connection.

  A lot of riders missed that. And to his mind, it was the thing that separated out the champions. His brothers, great though they were, didn’t have the patience for it. They couldn’t do stillness. And while he didn’t like it in abundance, he always took that moment. Where he let the crowd fade into the background, the clanging of the gates and the noise around him, the horses kicking against the fences, all that. He let it fall away.

  He learned this as a boy growing up on the ranch. It had just been a long time since he’d used it in a quieter context.

  He hadn’t been allowed to.

  He’d known every horse on the ranch as a boy. He’d spent all his free time outside. Riding, exploring. And he’d known it was in his blood.

  Waking up one morning to find that his horses were all being sold had been like losing a piece of his soul.

  He knew even now that Hank didn’t understand that. That his connection wasn’t about liking to skip out of school or ignore his homework.

  That it had been something deeper.

  Something that had been damaged in a deep and real way that day. He’d spent years after waking up on a ranch with no horses.

  And at that point the rodeo he’d never really wanted to be part of had looked pretty sweet by comparison. Bonus points for pissing his dad off.

  For proving to him that he couldn’t win.

  Still, in moments like this when Gabe realized how long it had been since he’d truly connected with one of the animals, he wondered if Hank had won in a more profound way than he realized.

  “You a horse whisperer?”

  He looked over at Jamie, who was watching him with amusement, her arms crossed, that sassy mouth of hers quirked up to one side, a groove there deepening.

  “You’re not the only person who knows how to find a connection with an animal,” he said.

  “Then why weren’t you doing it the other day?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. Lying.

  He knew why. This whole thing was uncomfortable, this fit back into the ranch, when he wasn’t really here. When his plan was to leave.

  When he had so intentionally put off the desire to do this. When he had so intentionally run headlong into the thing his dad hadn’t wanted him to do.

  His version of revenge, he supposed.

  Become a rodeo champion.

  It was complicated in a family like his. His father wasn’t an irredeemable villain. He might have done underhanded things, but when it came to his kids, he’d done it to try to give them what he’d thought would be a better life. He had the subtlety of a damn sledgehammer, but his motives were often good. Hank Dalton loved his kids, and they loved him. He was charming, and he was fun. And he provided a lot of the very important pieces that made Gabe who he was.

  A lot of important pieces. A lot of shitty ones.

  “Well, you better find some intuition today.” She swung her leg up over the horse in one fluid motion, firmly in her element again and with all her cockiness right in place.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “You giving out the orders now, Jamie?”

  He mounted Gus, moving alongside her. And suddenly he could see that lost little girl in her eyes. The one he’d glimpsed earlier when she’d been battling with the gate.

  “I’m just...just...”

  “You’ve got a hell of an attitude, little girl. And someday it’s gonna get you in trouble.”

  “How do you know it hasn’t already?” she asked, lifting a brow.

  It took him a minute to decide what she meant. If she was talking in innuendo or not. He decided ultimately that she wasn’t.

  “Because you’d have learned,” he said.

  “I’m a Dodge. We never learn the first time.”

  She urged her horse forward and headed down the trail, and he did the same, allowing her to lead the way. Not just so he didn’t have to listen to an extensive critique on his form, which he imagined Jamie wouldn’t hesitate to give.

  But because he enjoyed watching her. There was something fascinating and innate about the way that she worked with different horses.

  “So you’re fixing to leave?” he asked.

  “In a couple of years,” she said.

  “That long from now?”

  “I’m not sure I’m in competing form for professional barrel racing, not just now. Plus, I have to go through the process of turning pro and all that.”

  “Sure. Familiar with it. Gotta get your card.”

  She laughed. “Yes, and not embarrass myself. And also have the money to get started.”

  “So that’s why you took the job with me.”

  “I love working for Wyatt, but the pay is shit.”

  “And does he know that you’re looking to get into the rodeo?”

  “No,” she said, whipping her head around to look at him. “You can’t tell him.”

  “I’m not that close with your brother. I’m not going to go talking about your business.”

  “Good.”

  “I think you overestimate the connection men have.”

  “I don’t think so. Things come up. Why wouldn’t you mention it? I just need to make sure.”

  “Why don’t you want him to know?” Gabe knew a fair amount about family expectation, but he was curious to know why, at her age, the influence of her older brother meant that much.

  He’d been young when he flung himself into the rodeo headlong, and angry at his dad. Angry at the way the old man had tried to take control of his life, determined to prove that he couldn’t.

  He was the oldest, so he’d considered that act to be a trailblazing one. One that would hopefully make it easier for Jacob and Caleb.

  Now, his ideal rebellion would have been to buy a ranch and do what he’d been wanting to do on his father’s ranch there. But he’d had no money.

  Still, he understood those angry impulses coming from somebody with no real power or understanding of the world. Someone fighting against a parent. He understood it less in context with her life.

  “I don’t want his opinion or his interference. I don’t want him to make any phone calls to make it easier for me. I don’t want him spending his money on...a new horse trailer or giving me a bunch of money for hotels.”

  “Yeah, what kind of monster would do something like that?” Gabe asked.

  “You don’t get it. I could have joined the rodeo years ago. I have access to all the knowledge, and I have connections. I don’t want to be Wyatt Dodge’s little sister. I don’t want to be Quinn Dodge’s daughter. I want to be
Jamie Dodge. And I want to see if I can do it on my own.”

  He nodded slowly. “I can understand that. You know, as Hank Dalton’s son.” He cleared his throat. “But as a warning, even if you do it on your own, no one’s going to remember it.”

  “Why?”

  “As the voice of experience, I can definitely give you some whys. My father did not want me joining the rodeo, Jamie.”

  “He didn’t? But you did exactly what he did. I would just assume that you were...taking after him.”

  “That’s what everyone thinks. Which is kind of my point.” He chewed on his next words for a moment. This wasn’t something he talked about. Not with anyone. “My dad wanted me to go to college.”

  Jamie let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a hoot. “Sorry. It’s not that I don’t think you could... I mean...”

  “Go ahead. Laugh. I did. I wanted to be a rancher. My dad didn’t want me to be. He said that he didn’t work as hard as he did for a son of his to end up in the same damn place. He got money so that I could have it better. So that I could choose what I wanted. And when he said that...what he meant was so I had something that he wished he could choose, but hadn’t been able to. I just wanted to be a cowboy. Can’t say as I particularly wanted to be in the rodeo, but it served a dual purpose. Pissed my old man off, made me money.”

  “So basically what you’re saying is that no matter what I do, people are going to assume I got there because of Wyatt?”

  “Yep,” he said. “Some people. The question you have to ask yourself, Jamie, is what it means to you.”

  It was a damned hypocritical thing, him talking to her like this. Lecturing her. Asking her what it meant to her, when he knew what it meant to him. But then, he had spent a lot of years avoiding deep thinking. And he wasn’t sure that was a bad way to do things.

  He’d been happy enough, out on the circuit, and that was why part of him was eager to get back to it. Being around here... It made him think. It made him think about every time he’d wanted to run when a real man would have stood and faced life.

  Made him feel even more like Hank Dalton than he did when he was out walking his boot steps in the rodeo.

  The trail dipped downward, the trees seeming to close in overhead, giving a dark, cool space that felt like it was closed off from the rest of the world. And Jamie looked...well, she looked at home. Out here beneath the pines, on the back of a horse.

  Those clothes she wore seemed right here. Not ill fitting at all. He’d thought of her as plain initially. A little brown wren in comparison to the kind of women he was used to. Her hair straight and always tied back, her face scrubbed clean, her clothes more serviceable than decorative.

  But there was an ease to her here, on the back of that horse, out in the wilderness. Not the brash, bold woman who seemed to be spoiling for a fight half the time, or the lost girl he saw haunting her eyes other times.

  It was still enough out here that it was easier to really see. Quiet enough that you could really hear. When he’d been younger this was where he’d found his peace, and also where he’d done his thinking. Where he’d been his strongest and most vulnerable.

  He could see it in her now because he knew what this place, what these mountains, did. Broke down your walls. Made you feel small.

  Not small in a way that made you easy to crush. Small enough to find shelter in these trees.

  “I wouldn’t mind a change of scenery for me,” she said finally.

  “Oh, yeah?” he asked, thinking it funny she’d said that since he’d just realized how well she fit into the scenery.

  The trail carried them upward again, moving in a zigzag pattern at the side of a mountain.

  “Yeah. It’s just...they don’t need me now.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  Gus decided to pick up the pace, bringing him in close to Jamie’s horse, who startled and took a step backward, kicking toward Gus.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Whoa, whoa.” He backed Gus up slowly while Jamie’s horse continued to twitch and experiment with the idea of bucking.

  Jamie hung in, patting the side of her horse’s neck with firm movements. “Ah, ah,” she said. “Shhh.”

  The horse crossed her feet, moving sideways back down the mountain for a couple of steps, but not startling anymore.

  They stopped for a moment as Jamie’s horse settled. “She’s okay,” she said. “But apparently, she needs Gus to keep his distance when the terrain gets a little bit uncertain.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Did he spook?” she asked, her trainer voice firmly in place.

  “No, he just took a step back. No bucking. Didn’t seem startled.”

  “Good. I think Gus is going to be ready for trail rides for just about anyone pretty quick. I think he’d be good for an inexperienced rider. Doesn’t take a lot of pressure or much strength to get him to go where you want him to.”

  “Yeah, that was my real problem with him the other day,” Gabe said, grinning as they moved forward on the trail. “Just a little bit too strong.”

  “Spare me,” Jamie said. “All that chest pounding doesn’t impress me.”

  “Who said that I was trying to impress you? I’m just stating a fact.”

  “Right,” Jamie said, huffing a laugh. The trail merged with the dirt road that was cut into the side of the mountain, and brought them to a lookout point that gave them a view of the pines and mountains before them, plus the patchwork of fields down below. They could see the main street of Gold Valley, and beyond that, the dark green, rolling grapevines. He identified Grassroots Winery easily enough, but there were a handful of others he wasn’t that familiar with.

  The explosion of new vineyards in the area was about the biggest change to the place he’d seen.

  He’d traveled a lot of places with the rodeo over the years, and he’d watched main streets shift and change, and sometimes die. He’d watched some towns undergo overwhelming expansion. Places like Bend that had transformed from a small community into one of the trendiest, most sought after places in the state.

  But Gold Valley remained much what it had been when he was a boy. Oh, the businesses on the main street had changed over the years, but the shape of things had stayed pretty much the same.

  “Ready for lunch?” Jamie asked.

  It occurred to him then that she hadn’t answered his question. About who didn’t need her. He didn’t know if she’d forgotten or if she was avoiding it.

  She still had that soft look in her eyes. That one that hinted at vulnerabilities she’d rather chew nails than admit to.

  He’d let her have her avoidance.

  “Sure,” he said.

  He moved off his horse, then went over to where Jamie was, extending a hand.

  She looked down at him, her dark brows knit together, the corners of her mouth turned down into a frown. Then she launched herself to the ground, dust kicking up around her boots. “Mighty fine of you, cowboy. But I’m more than able.”

  He shook his head, laughing. Jamie was truly something else.

  “Will you allow me to unwrap your sandwich for you?”

  She huffed a laugh. “If it’s the only way I’m going to get it. Otherwise, I can unwrap my own sandwich.”

  “Because chivalry is not dead,” he said, reaching into his backpack. “I will unwrap the sandwich for you.”

  She shook her head. He did exactly what he’d said, and handed the roast beef sandwich to her, along with a can of Diet Coke.

  Jamie looked around and found a large rock, plopping down on the top of it and taking a big bite of the sandwich.

  “You did a good job quieting the horse,” he said, unwrapping his own sandwich and taking a bite. “It was impressive.”

  “I thought she might get testy and try to throw me,” Jamie said. “But I could tell that
if I squeezed too hard with my legs she was only going to panic more. Fight against me. That’s the hardest part. Doing what’s counterintuitive as a person. When you want to just cling to them for dear life and really... Really, you just have to listen to them. Well, I guess the thing is you have to know when to listen to them, right? Because sometimes you have to be the boss.”

  “No, I know what you mean,” he said.

  For a brief second he felt a strange flash of something. An ache as he thought about what might have been if this had been his life. It was Jamie’s life, and she was running from it. Quiet, on the trails. Working with horses.

  After the strange intensity that had come with his childhood—the way his parents fought with each other, the drama that always seemed to surround them—he had wanted something different.

  Something quiet.

  Yeah, well, you’re choosing to leave it, too.

  The truth of the matter was, the idea he had now wasn’t enough to sustain him. Even with as much money as he made. He would need something else. Something more.

  Even as he thought it, he resisted it.

  He was doing the horse rehabilitation. He cared about that. It was something.

  It could be enough.

  “I’m not sure you need the rodeo to tell you who you are,” he said.

  She looked over at him. “It’s not so much about the rodeo telling me who I am. It’s wanting to figure out how that might be different if I’m not surrounded by...all the same things.”

  “Well, apparently, you’re more than able to install a motor and a gate,” he pointed out.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling slightly. “As journeys of self-discovery go, that’s a little bit of an anticlimactic one, but I suppose I’ll take it.”

  She smiled at him, and he held her gaze for about thirty whole seconds before she quickly ducked her head down, a little bit of color mounting in her cheeks.

  He turned his focus to his sandwich. And he was going to forget that happened. Not that they locked eyes like that, but that it had made her blush.