Shameless

by Tara Janzen

  “Hey, Hank. I got your message.” She took a step back on the porch; she couldn’t help herself. “I didn’t expect you to be coming through till—”

  Her next words were swallowed up by her squeal of protest as he bounded up the steps and swung her over his shoulder. He was five feet eight inches and a hundred and fifty pounds of lean hardness, near perfect for riding broncs or bulls, though he’d given up the bulls a few years back.

  He laughed and turned his head to gently bite her hip through her jeans. “Miss Sarah, I do declare, you get sweeter every time I haul through here.”

  “Put me down, Hank.” She squirmed in his grip.

  “Have you been following me in the Prorodeo Sports News? This is the year I make the National Finals. You gonna come to Vegas if I do?”

  “If you put me down, I might consider it.” She stopped squirming and waited.

  “Well, I don’t know, honey. This is about as close as you ever let . . .”

  The sudden quieting of his voice was ominous and made Sarah’s heart speed up. She couldn’t see a thing except for his cute backside and the heels of his boots, slung over his shoulder the way she was. But she could imagine plenty, and his next words lent a lot of credence to her imagination.

  “Hi, I’m Hank Cavanaugh.” She felt his weight shift beneath her as he took a step forward and stretched out a friendly hand. His other arm tightened around her thighs so as not to lose her.

  “Colton Haines,” Colt answered, making her humiliation complete.

  “Hank, put me down.”

  “Oh, sure, honey,” he said, as if suddenly remembering he was carrying her around. When her feet touched the porch floor, he turned his attention back to Colt, but kept his arm around her waist. “I know a Haines from Belle Fourche in South Dakota—a team roper. I used to run into him a lot on the Badlands Circuit.”

  Sarah extricated herself from his hold, asking if he’d like a beer.

  “Sure, honey. That would be great.” Hank grinned and gave her a gentle swat. He was pushing his luck, and judging by his grin he knew it. But pushing luck was his business.

  By the time she got back, they had apparently decided Colt wasn’t related to the roping Belle Fourche Haineses, and had moved on to a subject near and dear to Hank’s heart—the piece of junk he had stockpiled next to her garage the previous Thanksgiving.

  “Last time I was here,” Hank was telling Colt, “I bought a wrecked horse trailer from Al Loden over at the garage. Got most of it tore down, the good parts anyway. There’s a man up in Gillette who’ll buy it off me, if I could get it loaded into the bed of my pickup.”

  “Sure,” Colt answered. “I’d be glad to help.”

  Hank grinned and winked at her. “This is great. It’s out back of Sarah’s garage. I’ll just pull my truck around.”

  The cowboy could charm snakes, even a rattler.

  Ten

  Sarah was supposed to watch the steak while the two men stacked big pieces of metal into the bed of Hank’s pickup, but mostly she watched them. They seemed to be getting along real well. It was disconcerting.

  The steak was done long before they were, and when she saw the two of them laughing—Hank so hard he almost dropped his half of one of the trailer panels—she gave up and took herself and the slab of charred meat inside. Colt had known her for years and been living with her for three days, and she hadn’t been able to make him laugh. She knew the circumstances were difficult, but it still bothered her that he was laughing with Hank.

  “I swear to God, Colton,” Hank said. “You can check it out yourself, next time you get to Abilene.” He nodded to Colt, and together they heaved the panel into the truck. Metal hit metal with a clatter and a clang.

  Colt moved back from the truck, still grinning. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I don’t think I’ll be getting to Abilene.”

  “Well, you’ve got the look of somebody who’s going somewhere.” Hank leaned over the truck bed and pushed his worn white cowboy hat to the back of his head. “I don’t suppose you’ll be taking Sarah with you.”

  “Why wouldn’t you suppose that?” Colt asked, disturbed by the younger man’s perceptiveness and sudden change in subject.

  Hank glanced back at the house, then turned and met Colt’s gaze. “She looked kinda sad to me. I figure that has something to do with you, seeing as how this is the first time I’ve ever shown up and found another man hanging around.”

  Colt didn’t have a reply. Hank had hit too close to the truth. He knew he was being selfish, taking her love and her loving without making some sort of commitment, saying something about tomorrow or the week after next. But he didn’t think getting down on his knees and begging her to come to California with him was the right thing to do. They weren’t kids anymore—she’d been right about that—and the United States Navy didn’t give him much room to compromise.

  He knew he’d return to her. But their emotions were running hot, too hot to think straight and make decisions right now.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Hank said into the silence. “I don’t mind you leaving. I don’t mind it at all.” A broad grin flashed across his deeply tanned face. “Matter of fact, if I thought I could do it, I’d run you off myself. I’m not planning on being a good-for-nothing rodeo cowboy my whole life. One of these days I’ll be a good-for-something rodeo cowboy, and Sarah is just about the best thing I’ve found since I’ve been going down the road.”

  Colt had a feeling he knew where the conversation was heading. He couldn’t say he liked it, but neither did he stop it.

  Hank shrugged and looked out over the prairie. “In kind of a strange way, I’ve always been glad she was too smart to give in to me. I’ve always been a little on the untamed side, and I figured if she had enough sense not to sleep with me, she probably wasn’t sleeping with any of the other ramrods who blow through Rock Creek.” He paused and gave Colt a shrewd glance from beneath the brim of his hat. “But she’s sleeping with you . . . and you’re breaking her heart.”

  Colt had been right: The kid had played him like a raw recruit, and he hadn’t missed a trick. “Are you sure you don’t want to run me out of town?”

  Hank laughed and shook his head. “No. I’ve already paid for a couple of broncs to try to bust me up in Gillette. I don’t think I’ll give you the same chance for free. ‘Cause something tells me that the chances I take for fun, you take for a living, and taking chances for a living makes people so damned serious, and maybe a bit dangerous.”

  “How did you figure that out?” If the cowboy was half as good at reading his horses as he’d been at reading Sarah and him, Colt thought, then he probably would get to the National Finals.

  “That’s an Air Force jeep over there,” Hank said, “and you don’t look like a desk jockey. You’re too ready, like you’re used to things happening fast. You’d probably make a good bronc rider.”

  “And you’d make a good psychiatrist, or an intelligence operative.” Colt let out a short laugh despite himself, and gave the younger man a closer look. “Maybe I ought to be the one running you out of town.”

  “If I didn’t think that no matter how much damage we might do to each other, it would be Sarah who was hurt the most, I might give you a try.” Hank smiled, slow and easy, and adjusted his hat back down on his forehead.

  Colt laughed again and wished he didn’t like Hank Cavanaugh nearly as much as he did. “Just to set the record straight, I’m Navy, not Air Force.”

  “That’s still an Air Force jeep.” Hank leaned back and looked over at the vehicle parked in the driveway.

  “Yeah. It is.”

  “Then you must be real good at something,” Hank said, with just enough doubt to gall Colt into answering.

  “I get in, get the job done, and get out alive, and I’ve done it enough times that every now and then somebody does me a favor.”

  “I suppose I ought to be grateful we’re not going to wrestle it out right here in this patch of weeds.” H
ank’s voice was thoughtful, but still damnably unconvinced.

  Colt decided to convince him, to save both of them any trouble. Young men were always more ready to fight than made sense, which, of course, was one of the basic tenets of the military.

  “Well, Hank, I’ll tell you. I’m basically the property of the United States government, and I have an obligation to the taxpayers. If I thought you were going to get serious, we’d never get to the wrestling part. The Navy has spent an awful lot of time and money teaching me how to stay out of trouble. Sometimes that’s not so good for the other guy.” He stopped to let his words sink in, then continued. “On the other hand, we could do this the fair way. You go back to San Diego with me, join the Navy, try for the teams, and spend six months working out in the Silver Strand, then we come back to this patch of weeds and see who comes out on top. My guess is it would be even money at that point.” And that was the only point he was going to concede to the wild young cowboy with the bright, easy smile and the hots for Sarah. “Are you staying for supper?”

  “No,” Hank said slowly. “I don’t think so. I think I’ll go ahead on up to Gillette. But I want you to know, Colton, after you’re gone, I’ll be back.”

  * * *

  Hank’s parting words all but ruined Colt’s appetite. He stabbed a piece of steak and sat there staring at it. He’d come back to Rock Creek wanting to be with her, needing to be with her. He hadn’t thought of anyone else wanting and needing the same thing. In truth, he hadn’t even thought about what Sarah might be wanting or needing. She’d taken him in, and he’d been satisfied.

  He hadn’t minded Hank’s phone message. He hadn’t considered a western drawl on a tape machine competition, not when he was the man who was with her. But the difference between a recorded voice and a man showing up looking cocky and being intelligent was undeniable.

  Cole wanted Sarah, wanted to bask in the forgiveness and generosity of her love. He hadn’t wanted to face realities and make plans. His life was full of harsh realities. He’d wanted a reprieve. Losing his mom was taking a deep, silent toll, and he needed time. He didn’t want to have to think about losing Sarah too.

  He’d caught a glimpse of her father when he’d gone over to see Ruby. Bull had been leaving the cafe, walking with a couple of other men to a line of pickup trucks parked on the street.

  He wasn’t through with Bull Brooks, and that was the biggest reason he should get out of town without commitments. Sarah didn’t like her father, but Colt wanted to hurt him.

  Controlling his emotions, or at least channeling them for maximum effectiveness, was one of the things that made him good. He’d never equated rashness with courage. He’d never killed a man without his own life being the price of failure. But he’d seen Bulls Brooks crossing a sidewalk in Rock Creek, Wyoming, and he’d gotten a killing urge.

  The time his mom had visited him in Virginia, she’d been bruised on one side of her face. Not much, but too darkly to hide with makeup. She’d said she’d taken a fall. He’d called her a liar.

  Mothers, it seemed, didn’t take kindly to such talk from their sons, no matter how big their boys had gotten over the years. She’d laid down the law and told him his place, which wasn’t jumping to conclusions about her private affairs. He’d told her he didn’t have to jump too damn far to figure out what was going on, and she’d left town. She’d left him for the bastard who had hit her.

  All of Colt’s imaginings of ever returning to Rock Creek had died that day. Yet there he was again, in mind, body, and soul, connected to a Rock Creek woman in ways that defied explanation.

  He looked up at her. “Hank said you were engaged when he met you. Wearing a ring the size of Gibraltar.” He hadn’t wanted to talk about her near marriage, but he wasn’t able to ignore it.

  Sarah had wondered what was bothering him. She knew she’d burned the flank steak, grilling it long past his instructions of five minutes per side, but his thoughts had seemed to be far beyond the practical consideration of food. And so they had been.

  “It was pretty big,” she admitted, carefully cutting a piece of meat, putting her full concentration into the action.

  “What about the guy?” he asked, the seriousness of his voice giving a ton of weight to the question.

  “Jeff?” She cut another piece of meat while she was at it. “Oh, he’s not so big. He’s built sort of like Hank, but heavier.”

  His silence told her he didn’t think she was funny.

  “And he’s not nearly as nice,” she added, floundering for information to throw into the void. The instant the words were out, though, she knew she couldn’t have chosen less wisely. She quickly filled in and covered up with a slew of trivia. “He was a business major at Laramie. I think he went back for his M.B.A., and I heard he’s done real well for himself in the rental business. He’s got a chain of stores from Rock Springs to Cheyenne, renting all sorts of things, from power rakes to party dishes. We went together mostly while I was still in school, though he graduated a year before me.”

  “What happened?”

  “Between us? Jeff and me?” She glanced at him before busying herself with buttering a roll. “The usual. College romance goes sour, people grow up, go their own ways. Typical situation.”

  “Did you love him?” Colt knew it sounded like a stupid question, but he didn’t withdraw it.

  “I wasn’t pregnant, if that’s what you mean.” The look she gave him told him exactly what she thought of his interrogation.

  “Hank said he got the impression you weren’t too impressed with your fiancé. I just wondered—”

  “Hank said that?” she interrupted. When he nodded, she laughed. “Hank was the one who wasn’t impressed. I thought Jeff Sanders was a good catch, a man with a future, someone I could count on . . .” Her words slowed as she held his gaze, and he saw indecision flicker in her eyes. She glanced away and finished her sentence. “Until the night he hit me. That changed my mind pretty quick.”

  He stiffened, bodily and emotionally. “How in the hell did you ever get hooked up with somebody like that?” he demanded, not able to hide his anger or his disbelief.

  “He didn’t get ‘like that’ until he put his ring on my finger. Up until then, he’d behaved quite normally.”

  “And after he hit you the first time?” he asked with difficulty. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand any of it.

  “After he hit me the first time, the only time, I went to this bar in Laramie, looking for somebody with a gun. Instead I found this young cowboy who didn’t look old enough to even be in a bar. He had a real sweet smile, no gun, and he wouldn’t leave me alone until I told him why my cheek was turning blue and my mouth was cut.”

  “Hank?”

  “Hank. He went with me to Jeff’s and stood by me while I gave him back his diamond. Then he followed me to my apartment and slept in his truck for the rest of the night, just to make sure there wasn’t any trouble, he said. Later, I found out he’d been sleeping in his truck most of the summer, looking for his first big win. He got it the next night at the Laramie River Rodeo.”

  “And you’ve been his good-luck charm ever since,” Colt said, doubly grateful he and the bronc rider hadn’t gotten uncivilized with each other.

  “He likes to tell me so, on the three or four occasions when he comes through town every year.”

  “He’d come more often if you gave him half a reason,” he said, despite himself. Or to spite himself.

  A big sigh swelled her chest as she tossed the half-buttered roll down on her plate. “Given your experience, I know this will probably come as a surprise,” she said as she pushed away from the table. “But believe it or not, I don’t jump into bed with every man who gets a notion.” With that, she walked away from her dinner and didn’t look back.

  He found her a few minutes later, curled up on the porch swing, wrapped in an afghan she’d removed from the couch. She didn’t acknowledge his presence by so much as a blink.

 
“I guess I don’t understand how you could get close to marrying a man like that,” he said. It wasn’t much as far as apologies or excuses went, but it was the truth.

  “I was lonely,” she said, her voice tight. “I was twenty years old, going into my junior year of college, and I’d just found out that the boy I’d been waiting two years to hear from had joined the Navy, God knows when, and was shipping out to Japan. The girl who told me, Barb McLaughlin—you remember her from school, I’m sure—she thought it was so exciting. And all I could think was Japan, Japan, and die inside.”

  “Sarah—”

  “It was incredibly stupid of me to say yes to Jeff. Talk about love on the rebound. Funny, isn’t it. I got engaged hoping for a marriage that would last a lifetime, and you were getting married hoping to get laid for a few months.”

  “Sarah, stop it.”

  “Dammit, Colt.” She glared up at him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “If you don’t like the answers, quit asking the questions.”

  She was right. He hadn’t made any claims. He didn’t deserve more than she wanted to offer, not when she’d given him so much.

  “I apologize,” he said, “for asking about Jeff. I’m sorry I upset you.”

  And he was, damn sorry for upsetting her, but his words never seemed to be enough. He stood there, watching her, and knew something else needed to be said, something he’d thought a hundred times in the last few days and over a thousand times ten years ago.

  “I’m sorry I left you.” His voice grew rough, less sure. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  He didn’t know what he’d expected those words to get him, but even his lowest hopes weren’t met. She rested her cheek on her updrawn knees and looked out on the plains in utter silence.

  He needed a beer. No other acceptable thought came to mind. He needed a beer, or six or seven of them, and she needed a shot of Scotch. He went back to the kitchen for both, pouring a double over ice for her and taking his straight from the bottle. If they were going to fight all night, he’d just as soon do it with his senses dulled.