“I tried to talk to you, help you, after your accident.” It came out more like an accusation than an apology, prickly with anger and sorrow and guilt.
“I didn’t want help. I wanted to wallow.” Gil shifted in his chair and rubbed his thigh, the corner of his mouth quirking. “It’s the Sanchez way.”
The laugh caught Delon by surprise—a dry, rusty sound that scratched on the way out. “You, me, Dad. What the fuck is wrong with us?”
Gil nodded toward the open door. “Ask her. She’s the therapist.”
The bottom dropped out of Delon’s already hollow stomach.
“Sorry. I can only tell you what the fuck is wrong with your knee,” Tori said. “Your head is someone else’s department.”
Since it was too late to crawl under the table, Delon shot a filthy glare at his brother across it.
Gil responded with a careless shrug. “I figured she owed you a house call.”
“Not really,” Tori said. “I already paid my bill and I have to say, your night and weekend rates are highway robbery.”
She flipped on the light. Delon winced, cupping his hand over his eyes again. Oh yeah. The buzz was definitely fading. He spread his fingers a crack to watch Tori shuck her brown canvas work coat. She’d yanked her hair through the hole at the back of her baseball cap and her Cactus Ropes sweatshirt had a hole in the front pocket. Her jeans were streaked with dust and a single cotton roping glove was tucked in the right front pocket, as if she’d come straight from the arena.
Delon’s mind felt like it was folding in half, trying to reconcile this casually profane creature with the vision in diamonds and silk from the night before, until he glanced down at her feet. She wore the same scuffed boots. The sight of them steadied him, like a familiar landmark in a strange city.
“Well, let’s see it.” She unwrapped the bar towel that held the melting bags of ice in place and dumped the soggy mess on the table in front of Gil. “Take care of those, would you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tossed in a mocking salute, but didn’t move.
She ignored him, a pucker of concentration between her brows as she probed Delon’s knee. He sucked in a breath when her fingers hit an especially tender spot near his kneecap.
“Is that the worst?” she asked.
“So far.”
Her mouth pushed into a frown as she continued her inspection. “It’d be better if you weren’t wearing jeans.”
“Isn’t it always?” Gil drawled.
Tori smirked. “Generally, yes.”
Gil raised sardonic eyebrows at Delon over Tori’s bent head. She intercepted the look and reflected it right back at him. “Got something you want to say?”
“You surprised me. I was expecting a Patterson, not a roper.”
“Thank you,” she said, and went back to poking at Delon’s knee.
Delon stared at the button on the top of her cap, thunderstruck. That was it. The difference he’d been trying to put his finger on. The hair, the makeup, the clothes—those were just superficial. The change in Tori was fundamental, all the way to her core, and Gil had nailed it in one. Tori had become what Violet’s dad would call a hand. Not a wannabe with her Cowgirl Barbie boots and matching Barbie horse. She was a true roper. An athlete, her body tuned for competition. And a damned fine body it was.
She gripped his thigh and his calf and bent his knee slightly. “Relax.”
“Say that when you’re not about to hurt me.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and made a concerted effort to let the muscles go loose. Tori steadied his thigh and pulled up on his calf, testing the ligament. The joint held tight. She repositioned the leg, massaged his thigh and calf with her fingers, then tried again. Still no slack that Delon could feel.
She slid her hand down to his ankle. “I’m going to try bending it. Tell me when to stop.”
Delon nodded, eyes still shut, teeth gritted as she eased his heel toward his butt. The pain wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, but something felt weird. Sort of loose. Then the same old pressure began to build, the steel band clamping around his knee. “Stop.”
She did, but instead of straightening his leg, she said, “Look.”
At first he didn’t see what she meant. Then he blinked, stared, and blinked again. His heel was at least six inches closer to his butt than it had been since the surgery. “What’s wrong with it?”
“More like what’s right. You just cost Pepper a few grand in fees.” Tori released his leg and straightened, hands on hips. “It appears you’ve done a banner job of busting up the scar tissue all by yourself. Too bad you were awake to feel it.”
“He didn’t tear anything else?” Gil asked.
“Not that I can tell.”
Without comment, Gil heaved to his feet, scooped up the towels and ice packs, and left.
Tori’s gaze measured his uneven, hitching gait. “Hip?”
“Yeah. Motorcycle accident. Crushed the left side of his pelvis.” He hesitated, then added, “It happened the night Krista broke it off with him.”
Tori stiffened. “Well, I’ll just go now—”
“You’re not like her.” He grabbed the sleeve of her sweatshirt so she couldn’t walk away. “Even Gil said so, when he called you a roper.”
Her chin dropped and she was silent for the space of a few breaths. Then she looked up and smiled, a rare, unguarded thing. “Thank you.”
He let her go and settled his hand on his knee, his head spinning from more than the aftereffects of the tequila. “So that’s it? I get drunk and fall on my ass and it’s all better?”
“No. But at least now we have a fighting chance.”
Tori shoved her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt, lean and strong and determined. Delon pictured her in that blue dress, her arms and shoulders all sleek, bare muscle. What would she feel like against him now, with so much of her younger, softer self stripped away…
His body pulsed with a different kind of ache, even through the booze and the pain. He suddenly wished Gil would disappear so he could ask her to stay awhile. For what? He sure as hell didn’t need another drink and he was in no shape to stroll out to the dining room for dinner.
He rubbed a hand roughly over his knee, the stab of pain a reminder of why she was here. Professional interest only. “Sorry to drag you out on a Saturday night. Looks like you were busy.”
“Shawnee came out to rope this afternoon. I was just putting my horse away when Gil called.”
Delon shook his head, confused. “You still hate Violet, but you and Shawnee are friends now?”
“No. We just practice together. It’s the team roping version of a booty call—in, out, no strings.”
Like Delon, in other words. Shame twisted his stomach into a queasy knot.
Tori hesitated, then added, “And Shawnee only picked on me. Violet messed with us.”
She gave the word an emphasis that made it important. Made him important, if only in the past tense.
We should have done this sooner, she’d said.
Was is just the booze, or did this mean more than dancing? Things like talking, being honest, asking for what they really wanted? But just like with his brother, anything he could say now was much too little and far too late, so he settled for, “Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome.”
She studied him for a few beats, as if she wanted to ask the obvious questions, then said, “Come in first thing Monday morning. And ice the crap out of your knee until then. It’s gonna be sore.”
She didn’t say good night, just turned and walked away. Delon let his head fall back and closed his eyes, floundering in a slough of desire, misery, and guarded optimism. Instead of totally wrecked, his knee was better. But how much? Enough?
At least now we’ve got a fighting chance, she’d said. But she hadn’t said that the odds
were in their favor.
Footsteps approached and then paused, too quick and light to be Gil. “Delon?”
His eyes popped open. Tori stood in the door.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Miscommunication?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your brother. He’s gone.” She glanced over her shoulder and then back again, her expression part baffled, part suspicious. “He took your keys and told the bartender I was driving you home.”
Chapter 22
Tori helped Delon into her car and shut the door behind him. He was a wreck, his hair sticking up, his shirt yanked out on one side and flopping over his belt. He slumped into the seat and immediately closed his eyes.
She climbed behind the wheel and started the car. “How long since your last drink?”
“An hour, give or take.”
“How much did you have?”
“Three beers, two shots of tequila.”
He remembered, and could still count. That ruled out a serious concussion. “I assume you have ibuprofen at home?”
“Yeah.”
The shop looked cleaner and classier than she remembered. The eaves and windows were trimmed with red, and a huge logo had been painted on the expanse of blank front wall—the silhouette of a bareback rider in red and black, with Sanchez Trucking, Inc. circled around it. Neatly pruned shrubs lined the sidewalk on either side of the door marked Office. Sheesh. Even a shop had better landscaping than her place.
“How do you get up to your apartment?” she asked.
“The stairs are around the side.”
She stepped out of the car and was engulfed in Delon’s signature cologne—grease and diesel exhaust. Even though she’d loved Willy, truly and deeply, one tiny corner of her heart had always twitched at that scent. She’d hated how it still affected her, but there it was, so all she could do was make damn sure her path didn’t cross Delon’s when he was competing at Cheyenne, and avoid truck stops whenever possible.
And if her brain kept hopscotching between the new Delon and Willy and the old Delon, she’d be the one falling off of barstools before long.
She hunched her shoulders against the chilly breeze and walked around to the side of the building. The staircase was metal, narrow and steep. No way would she let Delon go up those alone. She went back to find him maneuvering his leg out of the car. He hissed in pain when his toe caught on the doorframe. She stepped closer and offered a hand. His fingers were warm and strong as always, but the clasp of his palm against hers felt different.
The calluses were gone. Those hard ridges on the fingers and palm of his riding hand that had been such a raspy, delicious contrast to her most sensitive spots. The nape of her neck. The inside of her thigh. Her nipples. She remembered how he’d smiled when he realized what it did to her—a dangerous smile full of wicked promises.
She let go so abruptly he lost his balance and had to grab the open car door to keep from toppling backward.
“Oops,” she said. “Slipped.”
And fell face first into another hormonal bog. Damn. She really had to get ahold of herself, before she went totally bonkers and tried to get ahold of Delon instead. That would be bad. Because he was her patient—and he was her past. They were both, to paraphrase his words, fucked up. Two broken halves couldn’t make a functional whole. Could they?
“I can make it from here,” he said.
She stepped back, but fell in beside him as he limped around the side of the shop. “Those stairs are treacherous.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice. I’ll be fine.”
“I doubt you were half tanked before. So rather than stand back and watch you roll ass over teakettle down a flight of stairs, I’ll just follow you on up.” His expression went mutinous, his bottom lip poking out, and she laughed outright. “Wow. I bet that’s exactly what Beni looks like when he doesn’t get his way.”
His scowl dissolved into a weary sigh. “It’s been a long day.”
“Tell me about it.” Beginning with her father’s divorce bomb, but she wasn’t thinking about that now.
Delon grasped the stair rail and stepped up with his good leg, then brought his sore leg level. Tori let him get two steps above her, then put her hand on the railing behind his, her upper body canted forward so she had leverage if he started to sway. Her position put his butt directly in her line of sight. Dear Lord, that was one nice butt. She yanked her gaze away, to a trio of trucks parked in a row alongside the shop, the chrome and polished paint of the tractors gleaming under the security lights.
A familiar fascination tugged at her sleeve. Big rigs had a sexy mystique, like modern day stagecoaches, the drivers perched high and proud, all that horsepower at their command. She’d had fantasies about Delon dragging her into one of those sleepers. Carrying her off to crisscross the country, just the two of them on an endless road trip, town after town of strangers who didn’t know or care who her father was. She gazed at the nearest black one, as streamlined as a stealth fighter. Climb on in, it whispered. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.
Her head rammed into Delon’s elbow as he stopped on the landing. When she stumbled, he grabbed the back of her coat and hauled her upright as easily as if she was Beni’s size.
“Good thing you came along to keep me safe,” he deadpanned, then raised his eyebrows. “Were you staring at my trucks?”
At first she thought he said butt, and her face went hot, before she realized he’d caught her checking out the semis. “They’re pretty.”
“Pretty.” He spat the word out in disgust. “Next thing, you’ll call them cute.”
She drew herself up, offended. “Cute is not in my vocabulary.”
“But you do have a thing for trucks.”
“I don’t—”
“It’s okay. Lots of girls do.” His smile was sly, his eyes gleaming with something wild and dangerous.
She suddenly realized they were face to face on the landing, their bodies touching, if you didn’t count the five layers of clothes between them. His hand was still on her shoulder and his fingers tightened fractionally, as if he would pull her even closer. Her heart sprouted legs and launched into a frantic gallop. Oh God. What if he kissed her? She wasn’t ready for that. Was she? If he leaned in and put his mouth on hers, would she shove him away, or devour him?
He stepped back as far as the small space allowed. “I smell like a brewery.”
Uh-huh. Now that she remembered to inhale, she had to admit his breath was a little, um, strong. “Got your keys?”
“My brother stole them, remember?”
Ah, yes. Gil Sanchez. She could absolutely see why he’d been irresistible to young, rebellious Krista Barron. The man wore trouble like the spiked collar on a junkyard dog. “And he lives where?”
Delon pointed to a powder blue manufactured home set far back in a corner of the huge truck yard, with an actual white picket fence, a swing set, and a basketball hoop above the garage, as if someone had deliberately set out to meet every clichéd definition of middle class respectability.
“Who is he trying to fool?”
“Krista’s family and their pack of lawyers.”
Oh. Well. Bite my tongue. “So the fence is ironic.”
“That would be the polite word for it.”
The windows of the house were dark, no car parked outside. “He must have slithered off to some satanic ritual.”
Delon snorted. “You think my brother is in cahoots with the devil?”
“Are you sure he’s not?”
Delon laughed, just a single ha, but it brought a hint of the old sparkle into his eyes. “There have been rumors, but it’s mostly the church ladies and they don’t approve of anyone.”
“Where there’s smoke…” She looked around the landing. No place to hide a
spare key. “How are we getting in?”
He reached over and opened the door. “This is Earnest.”
And his father had no reason to insist on state-of-the-art security. Obviously, Delon could handle it from here, but she was curious, so she followed him in. It was exactly what you’d expect of a bachelor pad over a garage: a second-, possibly third-hand couch, a shiny new entertainment center with a huge flat screen television, and an oversized beanbag chair. The kitchen was a cramped nook to the right of the front door, with appliances straight from a seventies flashback. Through two other open doors she glimpsed a bathroom slightly larger than her closet and a bedroom that couldn’t hold more than the one double bed. There wasn’t a toy or a spare sock cluttering up the place.
“Where do you put your kid?” she asked.
Delon glanced around. “Most of his stuff is at Violet’s. He spends more time there since I’m—well, I was—on the road so much.”
The explanation made perfect sense, but it was so backward—the All-American Boy living in a man-cave while his brother, the Lord of Darkness, ruled his own little island of suburbia. But then, until Joe, this had apparently been only a pit stop for Delon. His real home base had been at the Jacobs Ranch. And now…?
Delon shifted on his feet, running a hand over his rumpled hair. “I need a shower.”
Which was her cue to make a graceful exit. Too bad she didn’t possess much grace, and the idea of driving through the pitch black night to spend the rest of the evening in her empty house held so very little appeal. “I should stay, just in case. Bathrooms are the number one place for falls.”
“I can manage a shower on my own.”
“I wasn’t offering to join you.” The instant the words left her mouth, heat flashed over her skin. Oh, the things they’d done in her shower… She glanced around, desperate to distract both of them. “I can make you a sandwich or something while you get cleaned up.”
He stared at her for a long moment, his expression a complicated mix of X-rated memories and what the hell? Then he shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
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