Tougher in Texas

by Kari Lynn Dell

  “Awesome.” Shawnee massaged the ache in her forehead. “Let’s get some sleep.”

  “What about Hank?”

  Shawnee paused in the act of prying her heavier than usual ass off the seat. “You can’t go near him.”

  Mariah grimaced, but nodded. “Will you at least tell me what the doctor says?”

  “I can do that.” Shawnee checked her phone, but there were no texts or missed calls. “They’ve barely had time to get to a hospital, and God knows how long the lines are at an ER in El Paso on a Saturday night. We won’t know anything until morning.”

  And it wouldn’t hurt Mariah to stew for a while. She damn sure wouldn’t be the only one. Shawnee hauled herself up and toward her bed. “You can have the couch. And if you decide to get all weepy, put a pillow over your head. I don’t want to hear it.”

  * * *

  When Shawnee crawled out of her trailer the next morning, the clean-up crew was just beginning to work their way around the grounds, picking up cracked plastic beer cups and crumpled rodeo programs. Shawnee fed her horses, then kicked aside a broken string of red Mardi Gras beads as she shuffled to the office. She stopped in the open doorway, staring dumbly at a stranger in plain boy-cut jeans, a white sleeveless blouse, and red canvas Keds. Her face was scrubbed clean and a pair of delicate silver crosses swung from her ears, her hair pulled into a neat ponytail at the nape of her neck.

  But she spoke in Analise’s voice. “Concussion. Three loose teeth. Minor fracture of his jaw. He’s probably having it wired up right about now.”

  Shawnee frowned. “You left him there alone?”

  “No. His sister showed up at five o’clock this morning. Apparently Hank’s brain came unscrambled enough to figure out he might be in deep shit, and he called her for help. When she showed up, we cut and ran.” Analise made wide, scared eyes. “Cruz said he’s happy to step in front of Master Assassin, but no way he was gettin’ between that woman and Hank.”

  “Wise choice,” Shawnee said. Her friend and former roommate was no one you wanted to mess with when she was on a tear. “So…you and Cruz?”

  “He’s a very centered person. I like his company.”

  The answer was delivered with such a dignified air, Shawnee couldn’t even work up a smart-ass remark. Analise went back to coiling and stowing computer and printer cords.

  Shawnee squeezed her eyes shut for a count of five, then opened them again, but the view didn’t change. “Who are you supposed to be?”

  Analise straightened and looked down at herself. “These are my emergency normal clothes. In case I have to, you know, talk to cops or something. I can fake it for a while.”

  Shawnee shook her head. “Well, knock it off. You’re freakin’ me out.”

  Analise smiled angelically and continued on about her work. “Cole said if he didn’t see you first, text him when you’re up.”

  Shawnee did and was instructed to come to the announcer’s stand. Cole was waiting for her at the bottom of the steps. He looked like the Cole she’d thought she knew, what seemed like years ago, stiff through the shoulders and tight around the mouth. But he softened when he saw her.

  “I need backup,” he said, apologetic.

  She pinched his butt. “I’ll watch your backside any day, cowboy.”

  He smiled, ever so slightly, and dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. Then he turned to trudge up the stairs. As they stepped through the door, Tyrell latched a hard-sided equipment case, then looked up, haggard and hollow-eyed.

  “How’s Mariah?” he asked, a complicated mixture of concern and anger playing across his handsome face.

  “Embarrassed,” Shawnee said. “Mad. Sorry, even if she doesn’t sound like she means it. Might help if you didn’t look like you could chew glass.”

  “How am I supposed to look? She lied to me!” Tyrell slammed bunched fists against his thighs, then winced and shook his swollen hand as he gazed out the open front of the crow’s nest. “I have to take her home.”

  “Okay,” Cole said.

  “We can fly out today, then I’ll drive down to meet you at the next rodeo.” Tyrell flicked him a glance. “I need a day or two at home, but then I’ll miss the timed event slack on Wednesday.”

  “We’ll manage,” Cole said.

  “Ace can handle it easy enough.” Tyrell stared back across the arena, where the flags above the grandstand hung limp in the breathless morning air. “I understand if you want to replace me at the rest of the rodeos.”

  “No,” Cole said.

  Tyrell’s head jerked around, his dark eyes wary. “We could have caused serious trouble. If rumor gets around to the committee that the cops were here—”

  “You’re not the first. Won’t be the last.”

  Tyrell flexed his bruised knuckles. “When will Hank be able to work?”

  “Don’t know yet. At the very least he’ll have to pass the concussion protocol before we’ll let him in the arena.”

  Tyrell nodded slowly. Then he blew out a long, thin stream of air. “And then I guess we’ll see.”

  “You’re not pressing charges?” Shawnee asked.

  Tyrell’s mouth tightened. “We all know how ugly it would get. Especially for Mariah.”

  Just like they all knew Hank didn’t deserve to walk away, free and clear. Shawnee glanced at Cole. His eyes were bleak, his jaw clenched, as if he was in physical pain. She had a pretty good idea why, and wished there was some way she could make it hurt a little less.

  But when had she ever been the kind to kiss anything better?

  Tyrell looked at Shawnee and forced a sliver of a smile. “Thank you for last night. You were right…we needed a time-out. But I still have no idea what to say.”

  “Try ‘I love you no matter what, but I swear to God, girl, if you don’t start applyin’ some common sense I might have to wring your neck.’” Shawnee hitched a shoulder at Tyrell’s expression. “Worked for my granddaddy.”

  This time Tyrell’s smile was a shade closer to normal. “I’ll give it a try. She’s still in your trailer?”

  “I told her she was under house arrest until you came to get her.”

  Tyrell heaved a sigh so deep it sounded like it might turn him inside out, then shuffled out the door. Cole slumped onto one of the wooden stools, making it creak dangerously.

  “So Hank just keeps on skatin’ by?” Shawnee asked.

  Cole lifted his gaze to hers. She studied his face for a long moment—the grooves around his mouth that hadn’t been there a day earlier, the emptiness in his eyes.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said softly.

  She ran a hand down his arm and squeezed his fingers. Then she left him to come to grips with the only decision he could possibly make. At the bottom of the announcer’s stand steps, she cut around the front of the truck backed up to the loading chute and collided with Ace as he jumped down from the cab. He had his battered duffel slung over one shoulder. A silver Lincoln pickup idled in the road, Cordelia at the wheel.

  “Where are you off to?” Shawnee asked, more out of habit than any particular interest.

  “Back to Texas,” Ace declared. “My shoulder’s almost good as new and Cordelia…well, she’s quite a woman.”

  Shawnee gaped at him. “Didn’t you hear what happened last night?”

  “Yeah.” He shook his head with a rueful grin. “Boys and girls. Always gonna be trouble.”

  “Tyrell is taking his daughter home. He won’t be back in time to announce the slack. Cole is counting on you to cover for him.”

  Ace shrugged. “He’ll work it out.”

  Don’t do it. Don’t even go there. You know how he gets…

  But today she didn’t have it in her to turn the other cheek.

  “That’s it? You mooch off of us for three weeks, then walk away when we need you?”
Her voice had climbed to an embarrassing octave. She clenched her teeth and dragged it back down again. “Why am I even surprised? Like you’ve ever cared what anyone else needed.”

  His silver eyes glinted. Danger! Danger! “And you’ve got so much room to talk.”

  “Me? What have I ever—”

  “You came out of that cancer thing just fine.” He thumped a fist to his chest. “I lost everything.”

  “You threw it away!”

  “I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t been such a baby.” His lip curled in disgust. “Why should I sit around the hospital? Wasn’t a damn thing I could do. But if I had the nerve to go to a roping, your mama pitched a fit.”

  “You didn’t just go to a roping,” Shawnee shot back. “You took off to California for over a month and left her to deal with everything.”

  “She had her parents. And you always liked your granddaddy better anyway. I couldn’t take all the wailin’ and moanin’ anymore. So, yeah. I left. And when I tried to come back, you forced your mama to choose.” He took a step toward her, his voice low and vicious. “You drove her over the edge. Now she’s a basket case and the rest is all gone, thanks to you.”

  Shawnee staggered back a step, his hatred a visceral blow. She should have just kept her mouth shut. She knew better. But she was his daughter. How could he—

  “Get out.” Cole’s voice sounded behind her, his words dense with threat. “Don’t you ever come near her again.”

  “You can’t tell me what—”

  Cole took one heavy step down the stairs, fists like sledgehammers at his sides.

  Ace hitched his duffel higher on his shoulder and backed away with one last venomous sneer. “You can have the fat bitch. I’ll be happy to say I told you so when she wrecks your life too.”

  He swung around and strode to Cordelia’s pickup. As they drove away, he slung an arm along the back of the seat and smiled at the woman as if his conversation with Shawnee was already forgotten. Cole’s hands closed on her shoulders and turned her, gathering her tight against him.

  Ace actually hated her. And she couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Do you need your meds?” Cole murmured, one palm stroking her back while the other hand cradled her head, pressing it into his shoulder.

  She gathered her shattered thoughts and pieced together enough to take stock. Her heart was thudding, but her chest didn’t feel like an alien creature was tearing her rib cage open from the inside. And her breath was choppy, broken by something perilously close to sobs, but she wasn’t hyperventilating. She just needed a minute to regroup. To let Cole’s warm bulk absorb the blood from the wounds inflicted by Ace’s words.

  All the more lethal because they were true.

  Chapter 32

  Cole had never dreamed he was capable of beating a man to death, but if he’d been close enough to reach Ace Pickett…

  Instead, he nearly crushed Shawnee in a belated attempt to protect her from that…that…Christ, there wasn’t even a word for him. She allowed it longer than he expected, but was already pushing away when a car rumbled to a stop in the space Ace’s woman had vacated. Cole didn’t recognize the silver Dodge Charger. The man who swung out of the passenger’s side was another matter.

  Cole blinked. “Joe?”

  Shawnee spun away from him as the driver and backseat passenger also emerged, both tall, slender, and unmistakably Patterson bred.

  “Mornin’,” Joe Cassidy said.

  “What—” Cole began, then didn’t bother. He knew why they were here. He could even guess how, given Richard Patterson’s fleet of three private aircraft.

  Tori braced one arm on the driver’s door and the other on the roof of the car as her gaze narrowed on Shawnee. “Was that Ace we met on the way in?”

  “Yes.” The word sizzled as Shawnee spit it out.

  Cole breathed a sigh of relief. Mad was good. Infinitely better than what he’d seen on her face in that awful moment…“He was just leaving,” Cole said. “For good.”

  Tori studied Shawnee for another long moment, then nodded. “About time.”

  “So what are you, the damage control team?” Shawnee asked.

  “Something like that.” Joe opened the back door on his side of the car, dragged out a gear bag, and held it up. “Rumor is you could use a bullfighter.”

  “But Violet—” Cole began.

  Joe made a rueful face. “Booted me out the door. She says I’m driving her nuts with the hovering.”

  Maybe so. Or it might be the story they’d concocted so Cole didn’t feel guilty for dragging Joe away. Or—more accurately—they’d sent him to clean up Cole’s mess. Joe had celebrated his first wedding anniversary by presenting Jacobs Livestock with a check big enough to make him an equal partner. He had as much say in what happened here as Cole did.

  But this was Cole’s crew, dammit.

  Slumped on his couch through what had remained of the night, Cole had considered every possible angle, every course of action, while desperately wishing it was Shawnee snuggled up against him instead of his dog. Katie was an excellent listener, but she wasn’t much for feedback. Despite all of the excuses and justifications, he kept circling around to the same place. He couldn’t even call it a decision. The proper word would be consequences.

  The early morning call to his aunt and uncle was the hardest he’d ever made. The story sounded even uglier in the clear, clean light of day. Steve had been outraged, but he’d brushed off Cole’s apologies—as if he hadn’t completely failed to justify the trust they’d put in him. Still, Cole knew what his uncle had to be thinking.

  If only Violet had been there.

  They had been in complete agreement on what had to be done. Steve had offered to make the call to Violet, but Cole had declined. His crew. His responsibility. Of course, she’d already known. Word had passed along the chain from Richard Patterson to Tori to Violet. She’d said she was already working on recruiting a bullfighter to fill in for Hank.

  She hadn’t mentioned that she didn’t intend to look further than the other side of her bed.

  “I came along in case you needed any assistance on the legal front,” Richard Patterson said, failing to look like an average guy despite jeans, boots, and a polo shirt. There was something about his posture. The haircut. The camera-ready smiles. A man couldn’t scrape off a lifetime of polish in a couple of years.

  “And I’m just nosy.” Tori’s blatantly curious stare slid from Shawnee to Cole. “All kinds of interesting things going on down here.”

  “Make yourself comfortable.” Shawnee waved at the chairs clustered under Cole’s awning. “I’ll grab the sweet tea and cookies.”

  As they settled in, Cole gave the senator an apologetic look. “I’m sorry for dragging you down here.”

  Richard gave him one of those patented smiles. “I am more than happy to lend a hand after the hospitality your family has extended to me.”

  As if Easter dinner at the Jacobs ranch was a huge honor. The man must have piles of invitations—but possibly a shortage of true friends. Money and power had a way of isolating a person. Look at Tori—

  Except Cole couldn’t, because he was suddenly, intensely aware that she knew what he and Shawnee had done in her trailer. On her couch. In her bed. He risked a quick glance. She smirked at him. His face flamed, and he dropped his gaze to his boots.

  “Well, we sure do appreciate your help,” he told her father.

  Shawnee rescued him, returning from her rig with a jug of sweet tea and a Dr. Pepper for Tori. She passed around glasses, poured one for herself, then took a seat off to the side, as if she wasn’t a part of the discussion. And Cole couldn’t very well drag her over next to him where she belonged.

  “I should have stopped this,” he said. “I saw the two of them…I should have said something then.”

  “I told
you not to worry about it,” Shawnee reminded him. “I honestly thought even Hank was smarter than this.”

  Joe’s face went hard with contempt. “And we thought he’d learned his lesson at Fort Worth. Those stitches and the two black eyes didn’t come from a bull. He got the shit kicked out of him by a big-ass steer wrestler who didn’t appreciated Hank foolin’ around with his girlfriend. He was damn lucky he wasn’t too beat up to finish the rodeo.”

  Tori came to attention. “That’s why Wyatt refused to work with Hank the rest of this year?”

  “It wasn’t Wyatt,” Joe said. “I wanted to can him right then and there. There are too many guys like Cruz who appreciate every opportunity…but Wyatt talked me into giving Hank another chance. And he insisted on playing the hard-ass so it didn’t stir up trouble between Violet and Melanie. You know how she is about her brother.”

  Oh yeah. Everyone knew Melanie wasn’t entirely rational when it came to Hank. As if it was her fault, and her responsibility to make up for all the fucks their parents hadn’t given about her much younger brother. If Joe had fired Hank, and Melanie had been forced to choose sides…

  Joe shook his head. “The only thing Hank is serious about is fighting bulls. And he’s got what it takes to be one of the best—if he’d stop shooting himself in the foot outside the arena. Wyatt thought he could scare him straight. Kick his ass down a few notches and threaten to make sure he never worked another major rodeo if he didn’t smarten up.”

  “Could Wyatt do that?” Shawnee asked.

  “Without breaking a sweat,” Tori said. “Not everybody likes Wyatt, but they respect him. He always brings his A game and puts it all out there every time. Throw in that pretty face and the way he can work a room? Sponsors and committees love him. A few whispers in the right ears about Hank being unreliable…”

  “Would he do that?” Cole asked.

  “No.” Joe’s answer was immediate and certain. “Wyatt is into lifting people up, not knocking them down. And why bother? Hank’s doing a damn good job all on his own. But Wyatt’s still gonna be pissed at himself. He’s not used to being wrong.”