by Jillian Neal
Clenching his jaw so tightly it ached, Austin paced while Summer returned Dakota’s horse to her and brushed off everyone’s shock over her skilled riding and her bravery.
When she finally returned to him, he ordered himself to maintain control while he gripped her shirt and half-dragged her to the locker room. “What the fucking hell do you think you were doing? You could have gotten killed.”
“You were gonna get killed, Austin! My God, are you really that arrogant? I just saved your ass and now … ugh … what happened to your bag?”
Unable to see anything beyond the infuriated haze of his of his own anger, Austin hadn’t noticed that once again his tack back was overturned in the practice locker room. Tack was strewn everywhere.
Before he could process it all, Summer shook her head. “We’re breaking up. I can’t go to the ranch with you. I can’t ever be with you. Take me back to Cody. I need my truck.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she shook in an effort to keep them from cascading down her trembling face.
“What?” This had to be some kind of horrible dream. Too many things had happened for him to understand any of them. How the hell had that devil bull ended up at the practice arena? “We are not breaking up. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Austin.” She convulsed. “That’s why we have to. I can’t do this to you. He’ll never let me go. This is all my fault.”
“Okay, I know that was scary, but just come here to me.” Austin reached for her, but she jerked away from him.
“No. No, I’m not letting you hold me or kiss me, and I won’t let you tell me it will all be okay because it won’t. And if I let you touch me, I may not be able to … Just no. I have to go back to Cody. I have to get my truck. People don’t fall in love in a week, anyway. This was all too good to be true, and I knew it. Brant will never let me go. He tried to kill you.”
“Brant did not do that,” Austin tried to shout but his voice was a half whisper laced with haunted misery.
“Yes, he did. There were prod marks all over that damned bull’s hide, Austin. I saw the trailer pull up. He put him in the chute and used a hotshot on him to make him even angrier. He waited until you were the only rider left. Don’t you see? I cannot get you killed. And in the middle of all of that, he went through your bag again.”
“We are not breaking up.”
“Yes, we are. You can’t just decide that you want something and refuse to live in reality. We cannot be together.” She broke down and he tried again to touch her, to comfort her, but she shoved him away.
He dammed back his own tears with the clench of his jaw. Aware that his brother and sister were standing in shocked silence at the entrance to the locker room, he tried to work through the hellish pain that tightened its vice grip on his chest and come up with some way to make her stay.
“I can’t take you back to Cody,” was the best he came up with.
“You can’t keep me here.”
Closing his eyes and praying for help, he ordered his chin to stop quivering. “I have to do a chute tour in a little while and I have to ride tomorrow night. I can’t take you back until after that.” Two days. I have to fix this in two days. “I’ll quit.” The idea evulsed from his lungs like a single lightning strike that set an entire field ablaze.
“What?”
“I’ll quit. I’ll drop out right now. I won’t ride ever again. Brant can’t hurt me, Summer, but if that’s what it takes to keep you with me, I’ll quit right now.”
“No. You will not quit for me, and he still has custody of J.J. He’ll never stop. I can’t have a life ever again. I’m so sorry, Austin. I never meant to hurt you.” Another storm of tears streaked her face.
“Please, Summer, just please don’t do this.” His voice was weak and hollow, but he wasn’t above begging, not for her.
“Don’t make this harder than it already is. Just take me to Ekta’s. Thank you so much for the past week. I never knew it could be this way, but I can never see you again.”
She turned from him, and took J.J. out of Holly’s arms. “Summer, you don’t have to do this. We can all help you with Brant,” Holly pled on his behalf.
“You can’t, but thank you. I need to get out of here.” She tucked J.J. to her chest and fled the locker room. Austin’s feet were rooted to the concrete floor. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He wasn’t certain he even wanted to. He wanted no part of this life without her.
“Austin, man …” Luke gently reached for his shoulder but he jerked away.
“Get the hell away from me.” He flew after Summer.
An hour later, he still hadn’t gotten through to her. Somehow, he was driving her and J.J. to Ekta’s. How the hell had this even happened? He still couldn’t figure it. “You’re breaking my heart. Killing me. You know that right? I don’t even want to go on without you.”
Her jaw clenched tighter, and she turned further in the seat, refusing to look at him. “At least you will be able to go on. Better than being dead.”
“Being dead can’t hurt near as bad as this does. Dammit, if I’d known this was coming, I might’a let that motherfucking bull have his way.”
That vow earned him a half glance. He slowed the truck. “I will do anything, Summer. Hell, I’ll run away with you and never look back. We’ll never see Brant again. Just please.”
“Stop. Just stop it. Do you think I’m not just as heartbroken as you are, Austin? This is killing me. I ache. My whole body hurts from this. I am in love with you. I’m pretty sure I will always be in love with you, but I won’t get you killed.”
“He cannot hurt me.”
“You have no idea what the Prestons are capable of. When I was living on their ranch, there was this city councilman that didn’t get along with Mr. Preston. He denied some kind of tax exemption on part of the ranch land or something. It was gonna cost the family a bunch of money in taxes that they should have been paying anyway. Two days after the ruling, the councilman’s car was run off a bridge on Loop 12. The story barely made the papers. It just went away. That’s the kind of people they are.”
“And you think I’m just gonna walk away and leave you to wolves like that?”
“You can’t save me.”
“What about the hawk thing? What about what Ekta said?” To his dismay, somehow he’d driven them to Ekta’s cabin without any conscious memory of actually getting them there.
“It’s a story. You can’t save me. I had to save you, and now I have to leave you. Just go, Austin, please.” She threw open the door to the truck, had J.J. out of his carseat, and her suitcase in her arms before he could stop her.
He flung himself out of the truck. “Summer, don’t do this.”
Ekta appeared on the porch. Tears marred the deep lines of the old woman’s face. “Whirlwind, this is not meant to be.”
“Shut up, both of you.” Summer bolted inside the cabin.
“Your story is not at its end, Hawk.”
“What the hell does that even mean? This isn’t at all what you told her about Sapana or whoever it was. I thought I was supposed to be the one that saved her. She just ended everything. What am I supposed to do now? I can’t … I won’t …” He tried to maneuver the words around the rock-like enclosure in his throat. “I need her with me … always.”
“Did it ever occur to either of you that Sapana had to swing from that lariat long enough to believe herself worth saving? I prayed it would not come to this, but the storms are restless and coming. She cannot stop them, and neither can you. You will have to save her, Austin, if you can, but you must let her swing for now.”
“I don’t want to let her swing. I want her safe in my arms,” he pled to the woman as if she could actually have changed his fate.
“I know, but she has never loved before. She doesn’t feel she deserves your love now, and she believes that her love is cursed because of her past. She’s showing you love the only way she understands it. Give her time. Your story does not end here.”
With that, Ekta turned and followed Summer’s path back in the cabin. Austin stared after them both, still unable to believe what had happened.
Chapter Nineteen
“You didn’t have to stay.” Austin tried to rid his tone of the scorn and irritation over Luke not returning to the ranch with the rest of his family. The sun was setting behind the mountains now. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Apathy over his own well-being filled him instead. It was nearing supper time. He needed to help Summer cook and to get J.J.’s hands washed. He was supposed to be setting him in his highchair thing and buckling him in. Putting on his bib, and watching Summer brush her hair out of her face while she served plates.
Instead, he sat on the back deck of the ranch cabin, staring out into nothingness. Everything inside reminded him too much of her. It just hurt too badly. Her scent still clung to the sheets of their bed. He couldn’t sleep there ever again.
“Grant said the corn’s all in. I got nothing but time.” Luke handed him a flask. Austin downed the bourbon, trying to feel the burn, but his chest was hollow. There was nothing there to ignite. “We could go into town. See if we can’t scare up Preston.”
“He didn’t put that bull in there. I keep telling everyone it wasn’t him.”
Luke’s nod said he didn’t believe that any more than Summer had. “Any idea who did it then?”
Austin shook his head.
“Hey, uh, Clif called, said to tell you not to worry about not showing at the chute tour. They got another rider to do it. Said if they can find out anything about who did this, they’ll call you.”
“Clif can fuck the hell off with everyone else.”
Uncomfortable silence filled the cool evening air. Austin wanted to run away. Run from the pain. Run from the images ingrained in his head. Run from the memories of her hands on his body, the feel of her clinging to him. Run from the scent of her. It filled his lungs constantly. He couldn’t rid himself of it. The recollections adhered themselves to the very air he breathed. He had to move. Something deep inside of him spurned him on.
“I’m going for a walk.” He stood and stepped off the porch in one quick move.
“You want me to come along?”
“No. I’ll be back sometime. Don’t worry about me.” With that, he took off across the pastures attached to the ranch cabins, trying desperately to clear his head. He had less than two days to fix this, and that depended on him coming up with some way to keep her from Cody. Two days. The words became his mantra. Every strike of his boot on the hard earth spoke the time. His cadence sped until he was sprinting away.
He glared at the oppressive darkness as it engulfed him, blotting him from the fields.
“You said it was her. You said it wasn’t the buckle. You said I was supposed to get her!” he shouted into the moonlit nothingness. He’d never spoken out loud to Max, certainly never attempted to summon him from the heavens.
“You were.” Max’s voice reverberated through the Austin’s hollowed ribcage.
“What the fuck happened then?” He tripped over a tree root and landed on his hands and knees. He had no desire to stand, no fight left, so he sat on the cold dirt and stared up at Heaven. Hadn’t he lost enough in one lifetime? Maybe this was the punishment he’d always felt he deserved for getting his best friend killed.
“You can’t have us both, and I wanted to tell you that it’s okay to let me go. Actually, you’ve got to let me go. I wanted to tell you good-bye. I’m good, man. Really good. Let me go.”
“What?”
“When you have her, you’ll let me go. You’ll finally forgive yourself for something that was never your fault, and I’ll go.”
“But I don’t have her, and I don’t know how to get her back.”
“The Arapaho woman told you the story is not over.”
“What do you mean, you’ll go? I carried your casket. You’re gone. You’re the one that kept talking to me all these years.”
“You’ve never let me go. You kept chasing me, trying to bring me back. Summer’s separation from you is not permanent, but mine is. I brought you out here to tell you good-bye, my friend.”
“Max, dammit, I don’t understand. How do I get her back, and why the hell are you leaving me now?”
“The Zuni people believe that the macaw brings forth eternal summer for the people. Birthed from the staff of Yanauluha the priest. The strongest of the people rushed to the largest eggs they thought would take them to summer. Their impatience birthed only ravens. Those with patience and wisdom chose the small eggs and birthed the macaws. Her people make their feathers from the plumage, red, yellow, and blue. It is her beauty. You must give her time. Impatience and brute force brings the raven. It won’t be long. You will indeed be her hawk and someday you will fly together.”
“Max, what the hell are you trying to tell me?” Austin was half certain he must’ve hit his head when he fell.
“I’m trying to tell you good-bye, Austin. Your summer is coming. Cling tightly to that. Your fight has just begun. Fight with your mind, not your fists. Find your patience. You’ve never been too good with that. She needs you. Thank you for always being my friend.”
***
“Austin!” Luke jerked upright. He must’ve dozed off as the sun was coming up. His phone danced on the coffee table, vibrating its impatience. “Austin? Where the hell are you? I’m coming to get you,” spilled frantically from his lips.
“This is Scott. Austin isn’t there with you?”
Rubbing his hands over his face, Luke tried to think. “No, he never came back last night. Took off at sundown. I’m going out to look for him.”
“I’ll go with you. Listen, I talked some chick over at the PBR board into pulling Austin’s day sheet for me. He’s been paired with Dallas Devil tonight. I called to see if you thought there was a chance in hell he was up to that. I’m guessing not.”
“Tell you God’s truth, I really don’t give a damn who Austin’s paired with tonight. I’m going to find my brother.”
“Maybe he’s with Summer. Maybe they got back together. You know how he is when he wants something. Maybe he talked his way back.”
Wrenching the crick out of his neck, Luke considered that. His gut said Austin wasn’t that lucky, but he was damned stubborn. Never let anything go. He wasn’t gonna give her up without one hell of a fight. “I’ll call her.”
“I’ll drive around town. See if I can find him. Call me if you hear from him.”
“Will do.”
Easing back onto the couch, Luke debated how to proceed. Taking the easy route first, he called Austin’s cell. No answer. He tried again a minute later. Nothing.
Was that a good sign? His mind ran through a thousand scenarios, everything from Austin shutting his phone off because Summer had taken him back and they were busy … reuniting, to his brother lying face down dead in a ditch somewhere played out in his head.
Standing, he began to pace. If he wasn’t with Summer, Luke’s call was only going to scare her more. It was painfully obvious that’s why she’d done this. She was terrified of that ex of hers. Luke felt terrible for thinking she was after Austin’s money. Obviously, this was real love, as fucked up as it was currently.
He stared at his phone and willed Austin to call. When it remained silent, he drew a deep breath.
“No time like the present.” He repeated the adage, buying himself a few more seconds. He had Summer’s cell number from the night he’d helped watch J.J. She’d wanted everyone to have it in case something happened. Grimacing, he touched the number and prayed Austin might answer.
“Hello?” Summer ordered her voice to sound somewhat normal. She’d cried most of the night. Her entire being felt raw. The single word clawed at her arid throat.
“Uh, Summer, it’s Luke. Any chance Austin’s there with you?”
“No, he isn’t here.” Blinking several times, she tried to rid her swollen eyes of emotion. “He’s probably pulling his papers or blowing off some
steam.” The thought of him drowning the pain she’d inflicted on him in another woman made her sick. She swallowed down bile and vomit.
“He never came back last night. Scott called. They pulled his paperwork already. He’s paired with Dallas Devil tonight. Listen, I’m gonna go out and look for Austin, but if there’s any way we can prove Brant’s doping that bull, now’s the time to do it. Austin ain’t gonna back down now. He’s gonna want to stick it Brant, and he’s a disaster. He can’t ride that bull tonight and not get himself killed.”
Panic surged through her veins, engulfing her entirely. What part of her heart that remained intact pushed her to move. “I have to go.”
“Uh, okay, I’m gonna go out and see if I can’t find him. If you can think of a way for us to get something on that bull, let me know.”
“Good. I’ll call you if I think of something.”
She would not let Austin hurt himself because of her. That would make all of the pain they were enduring useless. She’d prove Brant was pumping that damned bull full of steroids, get him disqualified, Brant arrested, and save Austin, then she’d figure out how to get back to Cody and let him go on and win his buckle. He didn’t need her messing up his life anyway.
“Ekta, J.J. and I are going into town,” she called as she strapped J.J. into his harness carrier. This had to work. She’d seen people on TV breaking into hotel rooms. People never suspected moms to be up to anything. She’d figure out the rest when she got there.
“Take my truck, Whirlwind. You’ll need it.”
Ekta handed her the keys to her Chevy truck, circa 1980.
“How do you know I’ll need it?”
“I can hear the thunder now.”
Summer furrowed her brow. The sky was perfectly clear. It was a beautiful Cheyenne morning, not that anything would ever really be beautiful to her again.
“The thunder in your soul, Whirlwind. It beats its call for him. His wings are strong enough now. There was something he had to let go of, and he has done that. Take your things with you and take my truck. You will not be returning to me. The buzzard will return my truck to me when I need it.” Ekta hugged her, but Summer pulled away.