Tuesday she scrubbed Tori’s trailer, top to bottom, front to back, until there wasn’t a trace that Shawnee had ever used it. Then she texted to say she’d be dropping it off that evening.
I’ll be there, Tori replied.
That afternoon Shawnee backed up her pickup to the tack room door, loaded everything that wasn’t going to New York, and hauled it all to a storage unit. She started to pay a year’s rent, then reconsidered and made it two. She had no idea when she would be back. Or if. Maybe, with time and distance, she’d get over herself, call the owners, and tell them to auction off the works.
It was just after five o’clock when she rolled down the garage-style door and snapped the padlock shut on what was left of a lifetime in the Panhandle. Almost done. But this last part was going to be a bitch.
When Shawnee pulled into Tori’s yard, Delon’s red Charger was gone. Tori’s generic I’m-not-anybody-important four-door was parked in the driveway, under a thriving young pecan tree. New siding gleamed on what had been an ugly concrete box, surrounded by a patch of lush green lawn and a blaze of flowers, planted and maintained under Miz Iris’s strict supervision. She was worse than Cole, taking charge of everyone who wandered into her orbit. Shawnee fought off a pang of regret that there would be no more cooking lessons.
But she would always have Miz Iris’s rolls.
She drove on past the house and backed the trailer into its usual spot, alongside the indoor arena. The heaviness in her chest condensed into a lead weight. How many thousands of practice runs had she and Tori made in that building? All the hours, curses, bickering. The laughter and moments of triumph when they pulled off a flawless run. Tori was no piece of fluff these days. The moment she had decided to own her legacy as Panhandle royalty, she had become a force to be reckoned with.
Tonight, Shawnee would’ve rather faced Cowgirl Barbie.
Tori strolled out of the house, dressed for the barn in a Rope Like a Girl T-shirt and grubby jeans. She walked directly to the front of Shawnee’s pickup, crossed her arms, and waited.
Shawnee got out and slammed the door. “Yes. I screwed up. I should have told Cole about the hysterectomy.”
“Is that normally how it works?” Tori mimed a handshake. “Hi. I’m Shawnee, and I can’t have your children.”
“Cole isn’t a normal kind of guy.”
“Now that I can’t argue with.”
Shawnee waited for the what the hell were you thinking?, but it didn’t come. Tori was supposed to be mad, dammit. Cole was family now, by way of Tori being Beni’s stepmother. But she just stood there, doing a perfect impression of her father’s bland politician face. What did she expect Shawnee to do with…nothing?
Open her trap and dig herself a deeper hole, most likely.
She clambered into the bed of the pickup to release the gooseneck hitch from the steel ball. “Home alone?”
“Delon’s at the ranch. The annual end of season barbecue.”
Ah, yes. Shawnee’s invitation had been in the pile of mail her landlady had collected while she was gone. A letter bomb hidden amongst the bank statements and grocery store flyers. She jumped down from the pickup and set a wooden block under the trailer jack. “Shouldn’t you be there?”
“In the interests of family peace, we decided it was best if I sent my regards.”
Shawnee started cranking down the jack. “Can you repeat that in regular people words?”
“I’m steering clear because Violet and I got into it yesterday when I dropped Beni off.”
Shawnee paused midcrank. “About what?”
“You. And Cole.” When Shawnee stared at her, open-mouthed, Tori shrugged. “You told him you didn’t want a husband or kids. There are witnesses. If he chose to build some fantasy world, that’s his problem.”
“And you said so.”
“Naturally.”
Shawnee’s initial reaction was gratitude. At least one person was on her side. Then the guilt sucker-punched her. Just what she needed. One more burning ember to dump on her personal hellfire. Tori and Violet got along pretty well, but that hadn’t always been the case, and no truce involving stepparents was unbreakable. The damage Shawnee had done to Cole was bad enough. She shouldn’t have to live with being a wrench in the works between Violet, Tori, Joe, and Delon.
She cranked the jack with a vengeance. “I can take care of myself, princess. Go party with your people. And try to play nice.”
“Excuse the hell out of me,” Tori drawled, sounding more amused than pissed off. “My daddy raised me to have my partner’s back.”
“Yeah, well, we both know how my daddy raised me.” Or, more precisely, didn’t. Shawnee gave the jack one last turn to be sure the hitch was clear of the ball, took a deep breath, and faced Tori. “You’re gonna need to find a new heeler. It’s been great and all, but I’m ready for a change.”
Tori’s arms dropped to her sides. “A change?”
“We’re getting kinda stale, ya know?” She made a show of brushing the dust off her hands. “Don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s me…blah, blah.”
Tori stared, incredulous. “You’re breaking up with me?”
The underlying hurt made Shawnee want to take it back, but she only gave an elaborate shrug. “It had to happen sooner or later.”
Tori just kept staring at her, for so long Shawnee was holding onto her cool by the tattered edges when she finally asked, “Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why did it have to happen?” Tori’s eyes narrowed, her gaze sharpening to a steely razor that could dissect flesh and bone. “Why does everything have to end with you? Is this some kind of trust issue courtesy of Ace?”
“No!” She would not give the bastard even that much credit. Or blame.
“Then why? What are you scared of?”
“Scared?” Shawnee scoffed, despite the twist in her gut.
Tori folded her arms again and gave a slow, disbelieving shake of her head. “Wow, I am slow. You’re a textbook case. Parent abandons child at a critical time in her life. Child vows never to allow anyone to wield that kind of emotional power over her again. Thus follows a string of meaningless relationships—”
“It has nothing to do with Ace!” Shawnee yelled, so loud Tori took a step back. “My life is exactly what I want it to be.”
“Yeah. I can see how happy it’s making you. Did I mention you look like shit? Almost as bad as Cole.”
Shawnee stopped dead. She had to know…“He’ll get over it, right? Eventually.”
“What do you care?” Tori curled her lip, mocking. “You’re moving on. Big, tough Shawnee Pickett doesn’t need anybody but herself.”
“No one can afford to need me!” Shawnee clamped her mouth shut, but it was too late. She couldn’t leave the words just hanging there, shrill and pathetic, so she went with a carefully blended mix of sarcasm and self-contempt. “If I was a car, there would be a mandatory recall due to a fatal design flaw. I’ve already been wrecked, I’m missing a few parts, and it’s only a matter of time before something else goes to shit. Who wants that in their life?”
“People who love you?”
Shawnee scoffed again, harsher. “And in return, they get what? A stack of medical bills. The pleasure of watching me—”
She cut off sharply and bent to unplug the trailer light cord from the socket in the pickup bumper. Crap. Sweat had broken out along her hairline, and her stomach was already a wreck from three days of inhaling the junk food she normally avoided except in small, celebratory doses. Much more of this and she’d be heaving banana Moon Pies in the grass.
Tori was quiet for too long. Thinking. Shit.
“I see,” she said, in her snotty rich bitch drawl. “You’re just watching out for everyone else. How selfless of you.”
Shawnee jerked upright too fast and whacked her hea
d on the underside of the gooseneck. She cursed the insult to her already aching head. “Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy in this country. How do you figure Violet and the rest of the family would feel about Cole tying himself to a woman who’s already brought down one ranch?”
“Been there, almost done that when Cole’s parents died,” Tori said. “As a result, Jacobs Livestock is now financially structured in a way that protects the corporation from the debt—or death—of any of the individual partners.”
Oh. Shawnee rubbed the knot on her head, feeling as if the rug had been jerked out from under one of her feet. So she couldn’t ruin the company. She could still ruin Cole.
Tori cocked her head. “So…you’ve at least considered the long-term with Cole.”
“I’ve considered that it’s impossible.” And that she wouldn’t have this nest of rattlesnakes in her gut if she hadn’t allowed herself to wander into that particular dreamland. “Even if I could give him kids, I can’t promise anything beyond my next six-month checkup.”
“So you don’t even try.” Tori’s words dripped with disgust. “All those times you rode my ass about pushing myself, never settling—it was just a massive pile of bullshit.”
Shawnee yanked the latch on the tailgate and let it fall open with a bang. “No, it was not. I always rope for first place.”
“But when it comes to real life, you won’t even enter up.”
“Don’t tell me about real.” Shawnee stomped up to Tori and jabbed a finger at her, stopping just short of making contact. “I’ve got so much fucking reality, I oughta be a television star by now. Do you have any idea what it’s like, never knowing which day will be the one when you’re taking a shower and find a lump? Which time the doctor is going to walk in with your lab results and that look on his face? Well, in case you can’t guess, it sucks. I wouldn’t inflict this on Ace, let alone Cole.”
“You’re scared. I get it.” Tori leveled that cold blue gaze on her. “Again—been there, done that after I lost Willy. And you’re right, it’s a piss-poor way to live, waiting for the next disaster. But do you really think not letting yourself have anything that matters is going to make it easier to die?”
The blunt words hit Shawnee like a fist, driving her back a step and flattening her lungs as she pictured her grandfather—his withered body and the bottomless grief in his eyes as he whispered, “I’m going to miss seeing all the things you turn out to be.”
And Gran, trying to be strong and cheerful while the other half of her wasted away until there was just…nothing. How could she stand to see Cole that way, feel him squeezing her hand, desperate to hold on as long as possible and losing. Again. And she’d know she’d done this to him because she was Ace’s selfish bitch of a daughter who took what she wanted, no matter the cost.
Shawnee shook her head violently, scrambling the images.
“Just tell me one thing.” Tori’s voice was quiet, but penetrating. “What if you don’t get sick again? You just wake up twenty or thirty years from now and realize you spent your whole life bracing yourself for a wreck that never happened?”
Shawnee made a harsh, bitter sound. “There’s not a bookie in Vegas who’d take those odds.”
Tori set a hand on the Turn ’Em and Burn ’Em logo scrawled across the hood of Shawnee’s pickup. “When you made me enter this roping, I looked at the number of entries, how many really good ropers would be competing, and told you our chances of winning were about five hundred to one. And you told me I’d never be a winner if I kept planning to lose.” She gave another disgusted shake of her head. “How did you, of all people, let hope become the enemy?”
Another sucker punch, this time right to the heart. Shawnee spun around and grappled blindly for the door handle. “Fuck. You.”
Tori didn’t even pause. “I’ve never been dumped before. How does this work? Do I pretend I don’t know you next time we both show up at the same roping?”
Shawnee finally got the damn door open. “We won’t. Brady offered me a job in New York and I accepted. Tomorrow morning, I’m gone.”
She slammed into her pickup and revved the engine. Tori stood square in her path for a long moment, staring her down through the windshield, before taking a few leisurely steps to the side. She tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and continued to stare as Shawnee drove away.
Neither of them lifted a hand to wave goodbye.
Chapter 42
Cole was averaging six packs of gum a day. The rhythmic chewing drowned out his thoughts and soothed his anxiety, and the wrappers…
He stroked the one on his thigh until the foil was nearly mirror smooth. Then he folded it precisely in half, matching the serrations along the edges, and stroked that smaller square until it was also smooth, the fold as sharp as a blade.
Around him, at a safe distance, people chatted and laughed, ate and drank at the year-end barbecue. Even Katie had abandoned him to trail Beni and his herd of friends, who had a habit of leaving plates unguarded. Cole folded the gum wrapper again, and then again, the same way he had folded his emotions in and in and in, where he could keep them contained.
He frowned as he reached the last possible fold in the current wrapper. The one that was never quite right. No matter how hard he squeezed, he could never make the edges match on that last fold. He’d even tried using the vise in the shop. He could mash it as hard as he wanted, but parts of the white underside of the wrapper would still be exposed.
He squeezed until the nugget of foil dug into his fingertips, then examined the result. No good. He began to reverse the process. When it was flat again, he plucked the gum out of his mouth, set it in the middle of the wrapper, and carefully folded up the sides to cover the gum. Then he dropped it into his shirt pocket with three others, pulled out a fresh stick, and started over.
No one had to tell him this was not a thing rational people did. And lucky for him, no one would. They’d made their support known, each in their own way, since he’d been home. A single hard squeeze on the shoulder from his uncle. A plate of his favorite oatmeal cookies left in his cabin by his aunt when he didn’t stop by for his usual afternoon coffee. From Violet, regular assurances that yes, she’d been in touch with Shawnee and she seemed to be okay. Plus a spreadsheet with the season’s buck-off percentages and average scores for every horse and bull in the herd. He could analyze and rearrange the numbers for hours on end. And from Joe…blessed silence as they’d worked side-by-side checking and repairing fences.
If he wanted to talk, they were ready to listen. But he still had no words.
If he had, he would have given them to Shawnee. Made her understand that he knew he was the one with a piece missing. He was the one in mourning for a child—an entire life—that had never existed. Cole was profoundly aware that this was also not rational. Knowing didn’t make it easier to stop.
Any easier than it was to stop craving the smell and the taste and the feel of Shawnee. The way he reached out at night expecting to find her. The sickening jolt when there was nothing but empty, cold space.
Once again, he reached that final, critical fold in the gum wrapper. He tried smashing it between the flats of his thumbnails this time. Closer, but not perfect. He unfolded the wrapper, spit out the gum, and started again. Family and crew flowed around him as if he was a boulder planted under the huge oak in the corner of the backyard. When he crawled back out of that deep, dark center of himself, they would treat him as if he’d never been gone. Until then, they knew enough to steer clear.
All except Analise.
She marched toward him, intent in every stomp of her black boots. He scrunched down in his chair, but he hadn’t mastered the art of becoming one with nature, so she planted herself in front of him and braced her hands on her narrow hips.
“Why is Hank in Florida?” she demanded, her glare making it an accusation.
&nb
sp; “To fight bulls.”
Cole knew because the contractor had called Violet for a reference. Which she had given, no mention made of circumstances under which Hank had left Jacobs Livestock. To their surprise—and Cole’s immense relief—Melanie had reported that Hank seemed determined to do exactly as he’d said…prove that he could do just fine without them.
Analise wrinkled her nose, doubtful. “There are rodeos in Florida?”
“And ranches. It’s a good place for Hank.”
He could work all winter down there, and Florida was as far as he could get from Idaho and Mariah without falling off of the continent, which should keep him out of trouble. At least, that particular trouble.
Analise’s brows puckered. “But he’s alone. And hurting. I don’t think he’s ever been in love before.”
“In what?”
“It was so obvious.” Analise did one of her finer eye rolls. “He was a totally different person with her—polite and funny and sweet. When she was around, I almost wanted to date him.” Analise gave a melancholy sigh and braced her back against the oak. “I’ve always thought that was the ultimate goal, you know? To find someone who makes you the best version of yourself. And then to not be able to be with them…it seems like such a waste.”
“Not if it wasn’t mutual.” When Analise scowled at him, he hunched a shoulder. “It has to be two people who make each other better.”
“Like you and Shawnee,” she said, so quick he suspected this was where she’d been leading the whole time.
Cole looked away, his fingers smoothing and smoothing the latest gum wrapper on his thigh. Over by the beer cooler, his uncle Steve was in deep conversation with Joe and Delon, his hand palm down with four fingers extended, bucking like a horse through the air as he described some ride or other. Violet was planted on a lounger, with her mother and her sister taking turns keeping an eagle eye on her.
Music rippled through the air—Delon’s brother, Gil, and a couple of friends picking guitars and singing on the rear deck of the big white farmhouse, doing everything from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Ernest Tubb to a few songs Cole didn’t recognize. Gil’s own, probably. In the past couple of years he’d started performing occasionally—informal, unpaid, but damn good. If he weren’t so dead set on turning Sanchez Trucking into a world power, he could—
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