by Vicki Tharp
“It’s been more than a week since the last note, and we’ve cleared more than half the names on the list as best we could, maybe this guy has given up, or changed his mind.”
The grip Ian had on her hand tightened. “Or, he’s waiting for us to let down our guard.”
Cora bit back the flash of annoyance and the inclination to roll her eyes. All this super heightened alert left her physically on edge and emotionally drained. “I’ll pump her full of instant coffee. That should wake her up enough to kick ass if she needs to.”
Josephine toddled over and patted Ian on the chest. “Go on, lover boy.” The slurring was minimal, but obvious. “Us girls have got this.”
13
Cora and Josephine walked back to the stalls after packing their saddles, bridles, and saddle pads into the back of the trailer and started gathering the extra buckets, grooming supplies and whatnot, and loading them into their portable tack lockers.
The half-drunk, half-caffeinated thing wasn’t working in favor of Josephine’s mood. Josephine grumbled, “We forgot to get the dolly.”
Cora glanced at the tack lockers. With a total lack of enthusiasm, she said, “We could each grab an end.”
“We still need to haul the hay bales back. Might as well go get it.”
Up ahead, Scottie Hines turned down the aisle with a handful of gauze squares and a bottle of disinfectant. “Evening, ladies.”
“What’s up?” Cora bobbed her head toward the armful of medical supplies.
“One of the steers tore a chunk of hide off his flank on something. I was going to clean it up a bit, make sure we don’t need to call the vet in and get stitches. The rest of the crew are still at the bar. I could use a hand if you have a minute.”
“You go,” Josephine said to Cora. “I’ll hunt down the dolly.”
Josephine must have realized what she’d said because then she added, “Wait. I’ll go with you. Ian wouldn’t want—”
“It’s fine.” Cora rolled her eyes. Ian wasn’t her father, and even if he were, everyone knew how little she listened to the preacher. Besides, Ian might be her self-appointed protector, but Cora wasn’t some damsel in distress. She was fully capable of protecting herself. Besides, she’d be with Scottie. He wasn’t as big and imposing as Ian or Levi, but Josephine wasn’t exactly Muhammad Ali either.
Since his hands were full, Scottie bumped his chin towards a series of indoor pens. “We’ll just be over there.”
Cora started walking backward toward the pens, not giving Josephine the option of stopping her. “I’ll be back in a few.”
Near the steer pens, Scottie turned on a bank of lights, and they searched through one pen and then the other looking for the injured steer. “It’s one of the black ones.”
“These all look fine,” Cora said.
“Yeah, damn it. I told Forney and Thomas not to turn him out with the others, but they must have forgotten. He’s gotta be out back in the overflow pens.”
Behind the main and warm up arenas were a series of outdoor pens, used to catch the overflow from the barn. With all the roping steers, bulls, and bronc stock, there was never enough room inside the barn.
“Thanks anyway,” Scottie said. “I’ll have one of the guys help me in the morning.”
“We’re here. We have the supplies. Let’s do it now. I’d hate to see it get infected.”
“You sure? It’s kinda cold out. We could go back to your stall, get your coat—”
No way would she give Josephine the chance to talk Cora out of helping. “I’ll be fine. It’s not like we’re going to be out there forever.”
Scottie gave her a tobacco-stained grin. “Thanks. It’s not like he’s one of the prize bulls, but Olivia is a stickler with her stock, she’d tan my hide when I got back to Texas if the animals weren’t in good shape.”
Outside, the air had a bite as they made their way down the aisle between the pens, the pole lights bright enough to see where they were going, but they were going to have a tough time finding a wound on a black steer in the generally poor light. Luckily, they only had one pen of steers to search.
“I’m going to hop in the pen,” Scottie said. “You run around to the other side and get ready to open the gate. I’ll herd him through and we can run him up to the squeeze chute.”
Cora went around, the smell of urine and manure strong as she manipulated the gates. It took a little doing, but Scottie soon found the injured steer and managed to cut it from the herd, the other calves scrambling and mooing, their breaths coming out in white puffy clouds.
The calf ran through the gate and Cora slammed the gate closed behind it and shooed the animal through the chute. Scottie dropped down behind the steer, waving his hat to encourage it to move forward. As it ran through the squeeze chute, Cora pulled the head-gate lever, catching the calf behind the head, trapping it.
The calf bawled, slinging slobber and rolling its eyes. It kicked at the rails as Scottie jumped over to her side and added pressure with the squeeze panel to keep the steer still enough for them to work on it.
With the animal immobilized, they quickly determined that no stitches would be required. In a matter of minutes, they had the wound cleaned, the salve applied, and the steer turned back in with the herd.
Cora closed the last gate and turned, running smack into to Scottie’s chest. “Oh, sorry,” she said as she stepped to go around.
Scottie shifted, putting his hand on the rail beside her head, blocking her in a tight corner. She hadn’t noticed until now that he hadn’t brought the medical supplies back with him. When she looked up, Scottie had a dark enigmatic expression on his face. Her skin pricked, and her hands fisted on their own.
But this was Scottie.
This was her friend.
She forced her hands to relax, but met his eye when she said, “I need to get back. Ian will worry if—”
Scottie scoffed and, that close, Cora smelled the liquor on his breath for the first time. Her hands fisted again.
“What are you doing with him anyway?” Scottie asked, his voice a weird mixture of pleading and misplaced concern. “He’s not what you need.”
“That’s not up to you to—”
He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “We have a connection, Cora. Can’t you feel it?”
“What are you talking about?”
He palmed her cheek. “This. Us.”
She pushed his hand away. “There is no ‘this’. No ‘us’.”
“Baby, baby...don’t be like that. Murphy is the first guy you’ve been with since the winter circuit started. We both know that’s because of what we shared. Everything you’ve confided. What we mean to each other goes beyond sex, it’s—”
“It’s all in your head.” The cold statement brought Scottie up short. He tilted his head like a puppy who couldn’t understand basic commands. Cora’s core went deathly cold, and a shiver skittered up her spine and buried in her brain.
“No. Last season you were with a lot of men.” He took a step closer and she took a half of one back before the rails of the corral stopped her retreat. “But that’s okay, baby. I don’t blame you or hold it against you. But this season was different. We talked. We connected. Things changed. You changed. For a while, you stopped sleeping around—”
Cora pressed a hand against his chest. “Stop.” His heart thumped beneath her hand, while hers beat triple time, the roar of blood past her eardrums made even her own words sound far away. She decided to go with the truth and end this little delusion before Scottie ran away with it. “I didn’t stop sleeping with men because you were in my life. I stopped sleeping with men because of my pregnancy scare.”
“That’s not true.” His words came out soft, with a note of hurt. Cora might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t wrapped his hand around her wrist, his grip just shy of bruising.
This was getting out of hand.
Getting?
Okay, was already way out of hand. Cora stood straighte
r, getting on her tippy-toes to get in his face. “You need to back the fuck off.”
Yanking her hand, she tried to pull free, but Scottie proved stronger than he looked. Far off, Ian called her name. She heard the tension in his voice, the rising fear, the near panic of not being able to find her.
She opened her mouth to scream, but Scottie pressed up against her, his mouth covering hers, swallowing her screams as he forced his tongue into her mouth. The taste of stale tobacco and cheap liquor churned her stomach and made her gag. His leg came between her thighs, his body pressing her back until she was shoved into the rails.
Tearing her face away, she dragged in a quick breath, but his hand came down over her mouth before she could yell out. If Ian was still calling her name, he’d gone in the other direction because she couldn’t hear him any longer, and what little sounds she could make were easily covered by the bawling of cattle and the neighs of horses.
“You going to be quiet?” Scottie asked.
She nodded her lie. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
The realization settled in with the truth of her words. It had been Scottie all along who had sent her the clippings and the roses. That he hadn’t even been on her list should have left her feeling cold and vulnerable, instead it made her blood boil as the adrenaline spiked in her system.
“If you just let it, we could be so good together. You don’t need him.” Scottie said the words like he was a reasonable man, like she would turn to him and say, ‘yeah, you’re right.’
When she wanted to fight, when she wanted to run, she had to force herself to keep her wits about her. With his body pinning her, she couldn’t kick or knee or punch with any effectiveness. To fight him, her advantage wouldn’t come from her size and muscle, but from her wits.
“Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?” Cora said, biding her time until she could catch him off guard. The hand she’d laid on his chest, didn’t push him away, instead, she slipped it around the back of his neck and pulled him closer. “Can you forgive me? For being with Ian, for not—”
“Oh, baby.” Scottie eased closer and rested his forehead on hers. “We all make mistakes.”
He took a step back to look at her face. Cora worked hard turning her sneer into a smile. She could hear Ian calling again, as well as Josephine, still far away. Out in the far, dark corner of the stock yard between the pens and several outbuildings, she and Scottie wouldn’t be easily spotted.
Sliding her hands down Scottie’s arms, she gripped his hands and he let her pull them from her shoulders. She had to get back to the barn, back to where Ian or Josephine had a chance of helping her. “Then let’s go tell Ian,” she said. “You and me.”
She looked him directly in the eye as he rubbed his thumbs across her palms. Biting the inside of her cheek, she suppressed a shudder, and hoped the poor shadows would help disguise her insincerity.
“You mean that, don’t you, baby.”
She stood on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to the day-old scruff on his cheek. With a certainty she didn’t feel, she said, “I do.”
She took a step back, pulling him with her toward the barn, the tension coiling in her belly, every nerve, every fiber of her being telling her to fight, telling her to run. But she stood a much better chance of getting away if she could get him back to the barn voluntarily. She didn’t have to fake her sincerity when she said, “Come on. We can end this now.”
She took a step, then another, her hand sweaty in his despite the chill outside. His grip tightened, and he yanked her back until she banged into his chest. “You didn’t really think I’d fall for that, did you? How stupid do you think I am?”
“Ian!” She yelled at the same time she wrenched her arm back, jerked her hand free, and sprinted toward the barn.
Scottie tackled her from behind, slamming her into the hard-packed dirt. Her head bounced, rattling her brain in her skull. Lights dimmed, her vision blurred then cleared as they rolled and grappled on the ground. She tried to call out, but most of the breath had been knocked out of her, she’d been lucky she hadn’t passed out.
Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed both of her wrists and started dragging her toward one of the outbuildings. Cora kicked a foot out, catching a corner of one of the pens, the sudden halt jarred one hand free. She twisted. She rolled. She hollered out loud, but the fight had stirred all the animals and their moos and neighs and running hooves made it hard for her to hear anything.
Was Ian even coming?
For a split second, she broke free, her boots sliding in the dirt as she fought for purchase. Scottie grabbed her around the waist, but she managed to elbow him in the ribs. He grunted, his grip loosening enough for her to struggle to her feet. She took advantage of the moment, taking the heel of her hand and smashing it into his nose.
Scottie howled, his hands going to his face as blood flowed between his fingers. “You bitch. I should have known you were no different than the rest.”
Her reply came as a swift kick to his nuts. Scottie must have seen it coming because he pivoted at the last second. The glancing blow knocked him to his knees, but as soon as he hit the ground, he fought his way to his feet.
Cora only had seconds before he went after her again. With him blocking the way back to the barn, she couldn’t chance him catching her as she tried to run by him. She did the only thing she could—and ran the other way.
She sprinted down the aisle and squeezed between the rails of the back fence and kept running. Past the outbuildings, past the empty field at the back of the rodeo grounds, with any chance of help getting farther and farther away. Behind her, came the slap of Scottie’s boots and the ragged hitch of his breath as he bolted after her.
The muscles in her thighs burned and her heart raced as she called out for help. For Ian. For anybody. The deserted back alleys offered no protection. She cut down a side street and headed toward the main drag with the bars and hopefully some people.
If she could stay ahead of him.
She wasn’t the fastest runner, especially in boots. Scottie gained some ground, but adrenaline fueled her flight. Up ahead, the street lights got brighter, and a car pulled out of a parking lot, its headlights raking across her body.
Waving her arms, she called out. The car never slowed. It turned and accelerated down the road, with Scottie only a few steps behind her. Then she broke out onto the street and wrapped her hand around the post of a stop sign to help her with an abrupt change of direction, catching Scottie off guard.
His momentum took him into the street, but she made the turn and sprinted down the sidewalk, headed for a set of neon lights that simply said, ‘Bar and Grill’. The desperate move helped her gain a few feet of separation, but she knew it would be fleeting.
Her chest heaved, huge gasping breaths—the entrance to bar twenty feet away. Fifteen. As much as she wanted to glance over her shoulder, she couldn’t spare the time. Every step, every breath, every heartbeat, she expected to feel his hand on her shoulder.
Ten more feet.
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Before it could register in her brain, the blow came to her ribcage as Scottie tackled her to the ground. Cora’s head slammed against the pavement. Pain radiated around her skull, a blinding, searing pain that had her curling into the fetal position, her hands over her head, unable to defend herself as the stars in her vision faded and went to black.
* * *
After pouring over a bunch of negatives, and having chosen the best shots to enlarge, Ian pulled the last of the prints out of the rinse bath and hung them in the shower to dry. While he waited, he opened his windows to air out the camper and packed away the tubs of developer and fixer.
He looked out the front window, looking for Cora, but someone had moved their stock trailer into his line of sight and he could no longer keep an eye on their trailer while he packed. He glanced at his watch. Just after midnight. Cora should be done by now, but he knew how she and Josephine could sometimes get sidetracked
and get more talking than packing done. He wasn’t worried. Not yet.
Instead of starting to gather all the loose items laying around on the table and counters in preparation for heading out in the morning, Ian stood in the bathroom doorway, his arms crossed, his back resting against the jamb as he glanced over the glossy eight-by-tens.
He waited for the pang of guilt to hit. None came. Even though he’d promised Cora, when it had come down to the story he wanted to tell, there was none more important than the one in his heart, the one that starred a tough, hardworking, courageous woman who wasn’t afraid to live her life on her own terms.
If after he showed her the story, if she refused to give her consent to use the photos he’d taken of her on her journey from the struggles of trying to make a life for herself on the circuit to the joys of having her hard work pay off, he’d just wouldn’t have a new entry for The GlobeTrotter. No point in sending in anything other than his best work, even if that meant he wouldn’t win.
For the first time since he’d heard about the contest, since he’d had the dream of escaping overseas and hunting down stories, of sharing lives and hardships and triumphs from around the world, his determination faltered.
Because for the first time in his life he had a life and wasn’t just going through the motions. He had friends he liked, he had work he enjoyed. More importantly, he had a woman that he loved.
For once, leaving his old life behind had fallen off the top of his priority list.
He glanced at his watch again. If she didn’t return in five more minutes, he’d go hunt her down, even though he knew it would piss her off.
His gaze went from picture to picture to picture. Wait. He stiffened. All of them were of Cora, but it was the background that caught his attention and made the hair on the back of his neck rise, and the blood prick like jagged ice through his veins.
Of the ten photos, seven of them had Scottie Hines in the distance. Not of him in passing, or working, or generally minding his own business, but of him standing in the background, his focus on Cora.