The Horseman's Bride

by Marilyn Pappano

The sound of an engine out of tune disturbed the afternoon quiet. Though he turned to look toward the driveway, he didn’t panic, didn’t consider taking refuge in the barn. Though he’d heard the engine only once before, on Tuesday evening, he recognized it as belonging to Joelle.

  She parked near his truck and climbed out with a laundry basket that she left on the hood of the car. After giving him a wave, she ducked back inside, then straightened this time with her arms full of grocery bags.

  He didn’t head toward the house to help her. By the time he hobbled all the way there, she would have already put the groceries away and would be on her way out again. Instead, he leaned once more on the corral railing, closed his eyes and recalled a few of the horses he’d trained there. The accompanying pang hurt way down deep inside.

  “I never imagined you the meditating type,” Joelle said when she joined him a few minutes later.

  He glanced at her. “Nope, not me. Don’t you have better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than delivering my groceries and laundry?”

  “Nope, not me.”

  “What do you do?”

  “When I’m not looking after wayward relatives? I teach school. First grade.” She gave him a sidelong look. “I have Emma Miles in my class. She’s—”

  “I know who she is.” Emma, who was no good at playing possum, who always tattled and looked damn near identical to her braver, bolder sister Elly. Emma, one of Guthrie’s daughters.

  “You did him a favor,” Joelle said quietly. “If he and Shay had married, it never would have lasted. But he and Olivia... You should see them, Easy. They were meant for each other.”

  You should see them. He would like to. He’d missed Guthrie more than his folks, his other friends, the ranch—sometimes even more than Shay. They’d been like brothers from the time they were in diapers. The summer they were seven, they’d made it official, using Easy’s pocketknife to pierce the pads of their thumbs, mixing their blood. They’d thought they were so tough and macho—one skinny white boy, one scrawny Cherokee boy—when in truth, they’d both been scared spitless. The swaggering hadn’t come until after the deed was done and the sting had faded. Shay had gone home mad because they wouldn’t let her do it, too, but who wanted to be blood brothers with a girl? Not them.

  They’d never had a clue that thirteen years later that girl would end their friendship forever.

  God, they’d been so young, and he’d grown into such a fool. But he honestly didn’t know what he could have done differently. He hadn’t planned to fall in love with Guthrie’s fiancée. He sure as hell hadn’t planned to run off with her a couple of days before their wedding.

  He had come back to Heartbreak that April determined to stand up as Guthrie’s best man, to never let him or anyone else know what he felt for Shay. Even though he’d thought it might kill him, he’d intended to do the right thing

  It had almost killed him. He’d never suspected that seeing Shay—talking to her but not touching her, holding her or kissing her—could actually hurt, but it had torn him up inside. He’d wanted her so badly that he was sick with it.

  And then he’d gotten the chance to take her.

  It had been the Wednesday before the wedding, and he’d run into her coming out of McCaffrey’s Five-and-Dime. He could close his eyes and still see the dress she’d worn, the sparkly gold band that had secured her ponytail, the hopeless, wistful look in her eyes. After a moment’s awkward mumbling, she’d laid her hand on his arm and very quietly said, “I’m driving out to the lake.”

  He’d followed her and made love to her there on the newly greening grass on the shore of Buffalo Lake, and afterward he’d begged her—begged her, with no pride, no honor—to leave Guthrie and run away with him, and she had.

  Best man? More like sorry excuse for a man.

  He knew Joelle was waiting for him to say something. He had to clear his throat to make his voice work “I imagine I’m the last person in the world Guthrie wants to see.”

  “No, that’s probably Ethan.”

  Ethan the pest, they’d called Guthrie’s six-years-younger half brother. Apparently, he hadn’t improved with age. “What’s Ethan up to these days?”

  “Scamming every honest soul he meets, I imagine. Same thing he’s been doing since he was sixteen. That’s how Guthrie and Olivia met.”

  “Ethan scammed her?”

  “Her husband—the twins’ father. Sold him a ranch, phonied a deed and disappeared with his money When the husband died a year later, Olivia discovered that he’d left her flat broke. The only thing he hadn’t gambled away was the ranch, and so she came here to claim it. Unfortunately—or fortunately, I guess, considering how things turned out—the ranch wasn’t Ethan’s to sell. It belonged to Guthrie.” She turned to lean with the fence at her back. “Ethan did have a change of heart. He came to the wedding and gave Olivia whatever money he hadn’t blown. He spent one night partying over in Buffalo Plains, then disappeared again. As far as Guthrie’s concerned, he can stay gone this time.”

  A backstabbing best friend, an unfaithful fiancée and a thieving brother, Easy thought bitterly. Guthne must be wondering what in the hell he’d ever done to deserve such losers in his life. But he’d gotten his reward. He’d won the grand prize—Olivia, Elly and Emma.

  And Ethan, Shay and Easy had gotten exactly what they deserved.

  Deliberately he changed the subject. “So why aren’t you married and having your own kids instead of taking care of wayward relatives and teaching other people’s kids?”

  Joelle shrugged. “Some women are destined to go the wife-mother route. Some are meant to be schoolmarm spinsters.”

  The image made him smile wryly. “And maybe some women are just too picky for their own good.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s me. Picky, picky.” She pushed away from the fence and took a few steps. “Come on, walk back to the house with me so I can leave.”

  “I can watch you leave from here.”

  “Humor me. Prove that you can stand on your own two feet and don’t really need that fence you’ve been clinging to since I got here.”

  Like Elly, she let him set the pace, giving no indication of impatience at how slowly he moved. She didn’t fill the silence with chatter, either, the way his mother always did, as if meaningless conversation could disguise the fact that he was no longer agile or quick on his feet.

  When they reached the cars, Joelle moved the laundry basket from the hood to the top porch step, then came back, keys in hand. “I picked up your dirty laundry. I’ll have it back in a few days.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Jo.”

  “What are you going to do? Drive into town to the Laundromat and do it yourself?” She saw his flinch and smiled sympathetically. “It wouldn’t be too hard after the first or second time. People would talk in the beginning because they’re curious. But once they got used to seeing you around—”

  What she really meant was once they got used to seeing him. Once they became accustomed to the fact that Heartbreak’s hotshot rodeo star was a scarred, deformed cripple who wouldn’t be breaking any more hearts.

  He didn’t intend to give anyone the opportunity to get used to seeing him. He was going to stay here. Alone. Lonely.

  “Let me get you some money—”

  She brushed him off. “Don’t worry about it. I know you’re good for it.” Distracted, she glanced over her shoulder to the road. “Looks like your day for company.”

  He followed her gaze and watched the small silver sports car slow down for the turn into his driveway. He’d never seen it before, but he knew who it belonged to. It was sleek, beautiful, dangerous—just like its owner. His fingers tightened around the cane, and the muscles in his stomach knotted. “I don’t suppose you’d send her away while I go inside.”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  They both watched the car ease around the last turn, then come to a stop beside Joelle’s beat-up wagon. He tried to look away but found it impossible
to not watch as the door opened. As tall and leggy as she was, Shay exited the small car gracefully, so damn tantalizingly and with such confidence. She didn’t check to make sure her hair was in place, didn’t straighten the scrap of fabric that passed for a skirt, didn’t tug at the skin-tight top. She just sort of emerged, perfectly presentable, perfectly poised. Just plain perfect.

  And he was this decade’s poster boy for imperfect.

  As she strolled toward them, he slid his hand into his pocket, but there was nothing he could do to hide the rest of his flaws. He wished he’d gone inside and locked the doors, wished he could hide m the shadows and gloom of the house instead of having to face her here under the bright afternoon sun.

  “Hi, Joelle,” she said in her everyday, unconsciously sultry voice. No matter how innocent the words, he’d always found the voice too feminine, too husky, too incredibly seductive for his own good. It made his skin far warmer than the hot sun could account for, made his heart beat faster than his physical exertion could be blamed for. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Joelle replied. “How about you? They keeping you busy at the café?”

  “All the time. I’m lucky to get Saturdays off. How’s Vince?”

  The mention of Vince, whoever he was, softened Joelle’s voice. “He’s all right. Unfortunately he doesn’t get many Saturdays off. How about Reese?”

  Easy knew who Reese was—Reese Barnett, star quarterback on the football team their senior year, star center on the basketball team, star pitcher on the baseball team. He’d gone away to Oklahoma State on a baseball scholarship, and Easy had gone off on the rodeo circuit and had never heard of him since.

  He didn’t like hearing of him now connected to Shay.

  “He’s fine, too. I saw him this morning at the café. I’ll tell him he needs to give Vince more weekends off.” Finally she turned her attention to him. He would have felt her gaze if he hadn’t been looking, would have heard the coolness enter her voice if he hadn’t been listening. “Hello, Easy.”

  When he didn’t respond, Joelle touched his arm. “Behave. I’ll see you in a few days. Shay, take care.”

  They stood there, he and Shay, six feet and fourteen years between them, while Joelle climbed into her car, then drove away. When she turned into the driveway, Easy turned, too, heading slowly for the house.

  Shay followed. “So Joelle’s taking care of things for you.” Her tone was cautious, empty of emotion. What emotion, he wondered, was she keeping out of it? Simple curiosity? Minor disapproval?

  Maybe a little jealousy?

  When he didn’t answer, she asked, “Are you interested in her? I only ask because she’s been seeing Vince Haskell for a couple of years and I think he’s pretty much got his heart set on marrying her, if he can convince her that it would work.”

  The steps came a little more easily than the other times, he realized once he’d reached the top. There he turned and looked down at her. “Jo’s my cousin.”

  She looked surprised. “I didn’t know—How?”

  “Her mother and my father are second or third cousins—something like that.”

  “Which would make you...fourth cousins? Fifth? Not close enough to matter.”

  “To the Raffertys and the Barefoots, it matters.” This would be a good time to tell her to go, he thought, before she’d climbed even the first step. All he had to say was, I don’t want to see you, you’re not welcome here, go away and leave me alone, and make it sound as if he meant it. But he did want to see her and he was damned tired of being alone. “What’s wrong with Vince Haskell that Jo needs convincing marriage to him would work?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s a deputy—a nice guy. Came here from Topeka. He’s just a little younger than Joelle.”

  “How much younger?”

  Shay shrugged, and her second-skin clothes seemed to hug her even tighter. “A few years. Like...oh, eleven.”

  He thought of serious, capable Jo, who’d been old when she was born, married to a man on the kid side of twenty five, and was tempted to smile. Haskell should give it up now, or come back when he was fifty, when eleven years didn’t seem like a lifetime.

  But who was he to give advice? He’d been only six years without Shay, and that seemed like two lifetimes—and neither worth living.

  The thought made it easier to scowl at her. “Why did you come here? You need more gossip? Did your pals hear about the scars and ask for more details?”

  Her gaze shifted fractionally, and damned if the scar didn’t start tingling, sending a shiver of pain through that side of his face. “What happened?” she asked somberly.

  “Who wants to know? You? Or everyone in town?”

  “Everyone’s curious. How could they not be? They’ve known you since you were a baby. They followed your career. They were proud of every championship you ever won. Of course they want to know. But it’s me who’s asking.” She moistened her lips as she climbed the first step. “Some people say you were drunk Some say you fell asleep. Some say you just lost control.”

  She climbed another step, and he backed away a corresponding step. “You were with me eight years. Did you ever once know me to hit the road while I was drunk?”

  “No.” Her advance continued, one slow step at a time. “So what happened?”

  He took one last step and felt the wall against his back. Grateful for the support, he leaned against it. What happened? He’d answered that question a dozen of times the first week after the accident. He’d given the same answer to the trooper, the doctors, his folks, the few friends who took the time on their way elsewhere to check on him. I don’t know.

  Had he fallen asleep at the wheel? Maybe. He’d always had so much to forget—how miserable he was, how lonely he was, what a lousy son of a bitch he was—and so he’d pushed himself hard. He’d taken too many chances, both in the arena and out. He’d surely been tired that night— had always been emotionally exhausted. Maybe he had fallen asleep. Maybe the fatigue, the night and the monotony of the long trip alone had been a combination his body couldn’t resist.

  Or maybe he hadn’t drifted off but had simply lost control of the truck. Maybe he’d taken his eyes off the road at the wrong instant. Maybe his mind had wandered. Maybe he’d gotten lost, as he often had, in thoughts of Shay.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. One minute I was driving through the mountains. Next thing I knew, the truck had rolled down the side of a ravine, and Gambler was hurt, and I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t move at all ”

  Barely breathing, Shay listened to the dispassionate sound of his voice. He could have been talking about the weather for all the emotion he showed, rather than the accident that had almost killed him.

  It wasn’t surprising that his first thought had been Gambler. He’d loved that horse, had felt a respect and admiration for him that he’d rarely felt for any humans—and the feelings had been mutual. She’d been with Easy when he’d seen Gambler for the first time. It had been as if, with that first, long look, they had each taken the other’s measure and formed a bond that could endure anything. If ever forced to choose, it would have been easier, she’d always thought, for Easy to give up her than the horse. When he had given her up, when he’d left her behind and taken off with Gambler and Clarissa, she’d envied them both. One had had his attention, the other his love. She would have given anything for one of those two things.

  She would have given everything for both.

  “How bad was he hurt?”

  Tension tightened his jaw, made his black scowl reappear. “Bad,” he said and abruptly turned toward the door. He moved too quickly, though, and threw himself off balance. Without thinking, she reached out to steady him, but the instant before she made contact with his arm, he caught himself and gave her a savagely angry look. “I don’t need your help!”

  Her own jaw tightened, and she folded her arms over her chest, her knotted fists tucked between upper arm and ribs so he wouldn’t see. “Fine. Next tim
e you start to fall, I’ll just step back and watch you hit the floor.”

  For a moment he stood there, breathing heavily. After a time, though, his breathing evened out. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then, with a shake of his head, opened them again. “What do you want, Shay?” His voice was dark and shadowed. He sounded weary, as if he’d traveled too many miles, roped too many calves and run from too many ghosts without rest. It was a sound—a condition—she remembered well from their years together.

  She thought of the answers she could give, all of them true. I want you. I want to forget you. I want to be with you. I want to remember every moment we spent together, to spend every moment we have left together. I want to erase you completely from my memories. I want to love you. I want to hate you.

  I want to love you.

  “I don’t know if I want to punish you or get you out of my system or get back in your life.” She shrugged ineloquently. “I don’t know.”

  For a moment he stared at her, his face still beautiful in spite of the scar. It was startling—masculine perfection marred by thickened tissue that pulled the corner of his right eye into a slight distortion—but it didn’t make him ugly. Any woman who looked would still find him incredibly appealing.

  “I don’t have a life,” he said, his voice low and intense.

  That didn’t surprise her, either. It had been a conscious choice on his part to limit his life to three pursuits—women, rodeo and horses. He was vain enough to be self-conscious of his imperfections, and those imperfections made the other two impossible. If this was the best he could walk after five months, he would never rodeo again, and he would probably never ride again. If he couldn’t have it all, he wouldn’t want any of it.

  “You have a life,” she softly disagreed. “It’s just not the one you thought you’d be living.”

  His gaze moved past her to sweep across the overgrown pasture, the weeds and broken fence, the empty fields. “Some life,” he said scornfully, then carefully limped inside.

  Shay stood there a moment, listening to the irregular shuffle as he crossed the living room. Then, with a surge of impatience, she snatched up the laundry basket he’d forgotten and went after him, catching up with him in the kitchen. “Grow up, Easy,” she said sharply, emphasizing the command with the slap of the plastic basket hitting the tabletop. “You think you’re the only one who’s had to face disappointments? The only one who’s had to make adjustments? Do you think Guthrie wanted to live fourteen years by himself, trying to make a go of the ranch and figure out what the hell went wrong? Do you think I wanted to be thirty-four, single, childless and running a nothing little café in downtown Heartbreak?”