by Vicki Tharp
“Baby,” he said as she clomped on by. “Josephine.”
Josephine blew out a breath and Comet relaxed beneath her, settling into a nice lazy walk as they entered the outside arena so she could cool him down. Maybe Silas was right. Maybe what they both needed was room to breathe.
* * *
Josephine and Cora sat in folding chairs in the nose of her horse trailer, their sock feet on Josephine’s lower bunk. The door stood open, and a steady Ogden drizzle and a light breeze keep them from parboiling in the tin can they called home.
Cora splashed tequila into their shot glasses. Josephine’s had the chip on the rim from falling on the floor after a trip down a rutted dirt road.
“To men,” Cora said as they clinked their glasses together. “They’re all assholes.”
“Here, here.” Josephine slammed the shot back, coughed and reached for the bottle. When the glasses were full again, she said, “And to Silas in particular who took assholer-y to a whole new—”
“Assholer-y?” Silas stepped up and leaned a shoulder against their open door, his hair and shoulders damp from the light rain. “I’m not sure that’s a real word.”
“If it’s not…” Cora downed her shot, no cough, no wince. A real pro. “It should be.”
Josephine tipped the bottom of her shot glass up, swallowed hard, and reached for the bottle again.
“You know you ladies have to ride tomorrow, right?”
“Who’s the one mothering now?” Josephine couldn’t keep the snark out of her voice, not that she tried really hard.
“Uh, oh,” Cora said. “This is awkward.” But instead of leaving them alone, she settled deeper into her chair, looking like she needed a big fat tub of buttery popcorn, so she could sit back and enjoy the fireworks.
“Can I come in?”
The rain had picked up, and water dripped down his face and off the end of his nose and chin. He tucked his hands deep into his pockets. Josephine almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“Say what you came to say. Then leave.” Cora wasn’t one to mind her own business.
He glanced over. “Cora? Do you mind?”
“Not at all. You go right ahead and say what you’re gonna say.”
Silas blew out an exasperated breath. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
Cora reached down and filled her mouth with squirt cheese. “I know.” Though, with her mouth full of processed cheese, it came out sounding like ah oh.
Lightning lit the sky. Long, white, gnarly fingers. The thunderclap ripped through the air and Cora spilled the next pour all over the wood floor. The liquid slid through the gaps between the planks and drained onto the ground.
“Cut me some slack, Cora.” Silas looked at Josephine. “Or not. I’ve got something I want to say, and I’ll say it out here, in front of God and everyone if that’s what you want me to do.”
“Yes,” Josephine said.
“Yes, you want me to spill my guts in front of witnesses or—”
“Yes, you can come in.”
Silas climbed in, standing in the one square foot of open floor space next to the door. With the wind picking up, it was probably only slightly drier than standing outside.
“You really fucked the pooch this time, mister. You should—” Cora grabbed for the paper plate filled with Saltines. “Oh, man. You’re dripping on our hors-d'oeuvres.”
“Sorry.” He ran his hand through his hair, slinging water over the bunks and them without even trying. “Look Josephine—”
“Ooh, look.” Cora had the attention span of a squirrel on speed. “It’s that new heeler from Saskatchewan. I’ve never had a Canuck. I wonder if it’s true what they say about them…” Cora grabbed her slicker and held it over her head, shoved the tequila in her armpit, and dashed past Silas into the rain. “You hoo! Hey, stud! Drinks on me!”
Despite being soaked to the skin, Silas chuckled. “She’s a trip.”
“Tell me about it.” Josephine pulled her feet off her bunk and waved a hand at Cora’s vacated chair. “Have a seat.”
The wind had shifted, and it was drenching the inside of the trailer. Silas closed the door, and Josephine reached behind her for her big six-volt battery lantern. She turned it on and swiveled the head, aiming it at the ceiling. The battery was weak, and the dim, yellow light was hardly better than nothing at all.
In the dwindling light, Silas looked even more tired than he had the past few days and just because he didn’t want her to worry about him, didn’t mean she could turn her concern for him off like a switch.
“I came to apologize.”
“Apology accepted.” She didn’t hesitate, though she also wasn’t in any kind of mood to talk about it.
Silas looked at her, his head cocked as if he were trying to puzzle her out. “Your words said apology accepted. Your tone pretty much said get the hell out.”
She held out the shot glass to him. It was mostly full. “You want this?”
He took the shot and threw the liquid into the back of his throat, thumping his chest with his fist and breathing fire. “Jesus. How the hell is a woman as tiny as you still vertical?”
“Practice,” she said. You didn’t run a season on the circuit with Cora Hayes and not learn how to hold your liquor. Her father would be appalled. Naughty grandma would give Josephine a high five.
The spot of light on the roof of the trailer decreased by half, and the intensity of the rain doubled to an almost deafening decibel. Silas reached for her hand, and she let him take it. Water dripped down his arm and seeped into her jeans.
When he spoke, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the drumming rain. “I really am sorry, babe. That was most definitely an assholer-y thing for me to have said. I know you were just worried about me, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
She smiled at his use of her made-up word. Loved that he could make fun of himself. “And I’m sorry if you felt like I was smothering you.”
Silas didn’t carry all the blame. Everyone getting sick or hurt, first Silas, then her mother, and now Toby, had sent her reeling. None of it within her control. She couldn’t do anything for her mother or Toby, but she wanted to do something for Silas.
A little too much something, apparently.
“It’s okay, I kn—”
“No. It’s not okay. Maybe we need to take a step back—”
“Nope.” Silas’s fingers tightened around hers. “I don’t like the way that sounds. Not even a little bit. Look, I changed my mind. Smother me. I don’t need air or space or to breathe. None of that is important. All I want to do with you is move forward.”
“We both know this can’t go anywhere. Maybe it’s best we put some distance between ourselves. Being together for the time we have left is only going to make saying goodbye that much harder.”
“Nothing says we have to say good—”
“Stop.” Josephine stood, wanting to pace but there was nowhere to go. The walls of the stuffy trailer closed in on her, and Silas standing made her even more claustrophobic. “This conversation is going in circles. I don’t want to argue with you, I just…”
She didn’t know what to say to make him give up. The tequila finally hit her system, and between the liquor and the exhaustion, her thoughts kept whirling around in no particular direction. She gave him a look, pleading with him for mercy. She didn’t want to say goodbye, but they both wanted different things out of life.
He shook his head and sighed, the grim expression on his face softened around his eyes. “Come here.” He held out his arms, and she walked into them, settling her arms around his waist and her head on his warm, damp chest. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and let her go. Opening the door, he glanced back at her and said, “This isn’t over.”
She wasn’t getting into this with him again. “I’m truly sorry, Silas.”
“You’re sorry.” The disappointment in his voice hit her harder than her father’s had that time he’d caught her sne
aking out to a barn party in high school.
Her throat tightened, and before she could say anything else that would confuse the matter like, don’t go, she said, “Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
He stepped out of the trailer, the rain had let up some, but he’d be soaked by the time he made a dash for his camper.
“Silas.”
He stopped and turned.
She gripped the door handle to keep herself from following. “Are you really okay?”
“My head is fine. My heart…” His lips turned down at the ends, and he swallowed hard and said, “…not so much.”
11
Silas’s world had tilted off its axis, and it had nothing to do with alcohol or his concussion, and everything to do with a woman.
Josephine.
The same woman who’d told him last week that she was backing away.
The same woman who’d avoided him all week.
The same woman who’d showed up last night at his camper and took him, slow and deep, without saying a word.
The same woman who’d vanished by the time he’d woken up.
Tension knotted the muscles along his spine, and his heart felt like she’d raked him with sharpened spurs. Right then, he didn’t know much. What he did know, was if the bulls didn’t kill him, Josephine certainly would.
At the pay phone next to the Cheyenne rodeo office, Silas dialed the operator and got the number for Toby’s hospital back in Salinas.
After connecting with his room, the phone was picked up on the fourth ring. “Ye—” Toby coughed up something that sounded wet and thick. He spat. “Yeah.”
“It’s me.” The tension eased from around Silas’s chest at the sound of his friend’s voice. Silas put his finger in his other ear to cut out the background noise. He didn’t know if it was the connection that was so bad, or if Toby was so weak that he couldn’t speak up.
“You made it. Ho-ly shiiit. Cheyenne.”
There were a lot of things Silas wanted to say to Toby, but he held back, not wanting to make the man sick with all the sappy sentiment, so he only said, “You should be here.”
“Next year.” And it sounded like Toby meant it. “Doc says if I take care of myself, I could be back on the bulls come spring.”
“That’s good news, man. The best.”
“Yeah. You sound thrilled. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought your best friend died, but that’s me, so I know that’s not true. Spill.”
“Look, I gotta go. I just wanted to check on you and—”
“Bullshit. The rodeo doesn’t start for a couple more hours.”
The numbers on the telephone dial blurred and his head swam. He really needed to get more sleep. Silas leaned against the pay phone, resting his arm on the top and pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the building pressure behind his eyes. “Josephine’s pretty much called it off.”
“Called what off.”
“Us. Whatever the hell it was we had going on between us.”
“I know you liked her, but man, this is Cheyenne. Don’t let her steal your mojo. There are plenty of ladies out there that would be more than happy to shine your buckle if you give them a chance.”
“Jesus Christ, Tobe. It isn’t like that. You don’t understand.”
Toby was quiet for a second and Silas was about to ask if he was still on the line when his friend said, “Try me.”
Fuck. Silas looked around making sure no one was anywhere near. The last thing he wanted was anyone hearing—
“Oh shit,” Toby said as if the words love sick flashed in bright red neon over Silas’s heart. “You love her.”
Silas couldn’t tell if Toby was awed, or repulsed.
Before Silas could answer, Toby said, “Let me give you some advice.”
Silas had sunk to an unfathomable level of desperation if he was considering taking relationship advice from Toby. Don’t get him wrong, Toby was a great guy. Just crappy boyfriend material…according to a long line of women. “This should be good.”
“Hear me out.”
Silas pressed his back against the exterior wall of the office, and the tilting stalls across from him seemed to right themselves.
“Put this woman out of your mind—”
“If I could do that, I wouldn’t be so fucked up right now.”
“You didn’t let me finish. Put this woman out of your mind until tomorrow night. Twenty-four hours. You think you can manage that, buddy?” Toby didn’t wait for him to reply. “You’ve worked too hard, risked too much, to lose your focus now. But come tomorrow night, you find her, and you do or say whatever you must to make her yours. You got that?”
Silas chuckled. Sounded like a solid plan. “Got it.”
Silas had to add more money which gave him just enough time to fill Toby in on the sabotage to the bullropes. When the phone wanted even more money, Silas said, “I really gotta go this time, but as soon as this is over I’m coming to see you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not going anywhere for awhile. You worry about hog-tying that woman so tight that she never gets away.”
Hmmm. A little rope sounded intriguing.
Silas shook his head, but all that managed to do was make the stalls tilt again. “Talk to you soon.”
“I’m gonna be watching. Don’t make me embarrassed to say I know you.”
“Fuck you.”
Silas heard Toby’s laugh before the phone cut them off.
The ride. Then the girl. Who’d of thought Toby, of all people, would be the voice of reason?
* * *
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
Stupid.
Stupid.
“You’re the most bitchin’ woman I know.” Cora and her horse Panache walked with Josephine and Comet to a patch of grass past the parking lot. They had a few minutes to let the horses stretch their legs and graze before they had to warm the horses up. “I wanna be like you when I grow up. You’re so friggin’ cool.”
Josephine’s stomach felt like someone had tied it in a constrictor knot and yanked it tight. And the most insane thing was, she’d done it to herself. Teach her to listen to the devil on her shoulder.
“There was nothing bitchin’ about it. In fact, I think I want to throw up.”
“Maybe you’re pregnant.”
“What? No. Definitely not. It’s my conscience telling me I screwed over a good guy I really care about.”
“It wasn’t like he stopped you. You’re the one who said it was the banging-est sex you’d ever had. Sounds like he was on board and—”
“Cora. Would you listen to yourself?”
“What? He’s hot.”
“Yeah, but he’s so much more than that. He’s thoughtful, and sincere, and loving, and considerate, and for some unfathomable reason, he thinks he loves me, even though I’ve treated him like shit.”
“Well, the treating him like shit is new, so…”
Josephine cut her a look that said you’re supposed to be on my side.
“You went to him. You jumped his bones. He liked it. You liked it. Nothing wrong with that. It’s not like it’s the fifties anymore.”
“Yeah. I jumped him after I said we were done. He probably hates me now.”
“Silas doesn’t hate you. Besides, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
“Not like that. I don’t want to be that woman.” They stopped at the patch of grass, and the horses dropped their heads and started shearing the tops off the blades. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Lust.” Cora nodded her head with certainty. “You’ve seen that ass, right?”
“Cora,” Josephine warned.
“And the way those chaps frame his package—”
“Cora.”
“Whaaat?”
Josephine stared off into the distance as one of the trailers carrying more roughstock, steers it looked like, pulled into the parking lot. “It’s more than that. I me
an if we had met a couple years from now, or if he wasn’t looking for a way off the circuit, then maybe…”
Cora nudged Josephine’s foot with the tip of her boot. Her voice soft and serious when she said, “No. I get it, girl. You’ve got it bad for him, and it’s scaring the hell out of you.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s a big boy. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me?” Comet bumped her with his shoulder, and she took a step aside, to let him get at the grass near her feet. Apparently, the grass was greener under the boots.
“You’re so caught up on following these rigid rules you’d set up for yourself at the beginning of the season. Frankly, you need to loosen up. You want to bend, not break.” Cora tossed her head toward the barn. “Come on. Let’s take the horses the long way around, then back through the trailers so we can start getting ready. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a barrel race to win.”
“Not if I win it first.”
Cora laughed. “On that walking gluestick?”
Comet lifted his head, blowing out his nose and coating Cora’s arm in horse snot.
“Ewh.” Cora wiped her arm. “See? Males are assholes.”
Josephine laughed and tugged on Comet’s lead rope. “You did just insult him.”
They followed Cora and Panache around the perimeter of the parking area then cut back through the camper and trailer lot.
“What was that?” Cora stopped. Panache stopped, and Josephine bumped into a dappled copper horse rump.
Panache turned his head and gave her a lazy blink. Josephine patted his backside and stepped up beside Cora. “What’s what?”
Cora was bent over at the waist. Her head upside down as if she were looking for an empty stall in the women’s restroom. Josephine bent over and looked under the trailer was well.
“Did you see that?” Cora said.
The trailer shifted as if someone had climbed inside. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Come on.” Cora tied Panache to an empty stock trailer, and Josephine did the same with Comet.
“What are we doing?”