by Vicki Tharp
The bull trotted to the end of the ring where it dove down a dark alleyway. It was over. Paramedics ran a stretcher in and the clowns moved to the opposite end of the arena and entertained the crowd with their antics. There were fits and spurts of laughter, but in general, the atmosphere remained subdued.
The paramedics worked quickly, stabilizing the cowboy’s neck with a collar and strapping him down to the backboard. A wide compression bandage encircled his left thigh. Dirt and sweat covered the rider’s face.
As the paramedics lifted him, his mouth twisted into a fierce grimace. That was good. Pain meant you were alive. From the crowd, a standing ovation as the paramedics carted him off, his right arm raised and his thumb pointing up giving everyone the universal sign he was okay.
As I sighed with relief, Hank’s hands landed on my thighs. I startled at the sensation. When had he come over to me?
“You all right?” he asked.
I opened my mouth to answer but closed it again, not knowing what my answer was because physically, I was fine, or I would be as soon as the adrenaline buzz left my system. I’d been scared for the rider, but what hit me the hardest was that this is what Hank did. Or rather, had done, until his career-ending injury.
A flash of guilt swept through me for that small favor. For knowing this dangerous part of Hank’s life was behind him. Hank had survived, the same way this cowboy had, but clearly, they could have been more seriously injured or even killed. My stomach did that little roller coaster flip-flop as my heart sank low in my chest. I hadn’t known Hank long, but I already couldn’t imagine the world without him in it.
As he lifted me down, I noted the sweat on his brow despite the mild chill in the air. The fans cheered as the next rider left the gates, but I focused on Hank as he sank against the rails. I clasped his hands in mine. Though it was slight, they trembled. “How about you?”
I expected him to brush it off. To put on a brave front and say he was fine. He surprised me when he admitted, “Hit a little close to home.”
Then he slid me between his legs. His arms crossed over my shoulders as I circled his waist with mine. He tucked me under his chin. Outwardly, he came off as calm, but his heart still beat a rapid staccato beneath my ear. A few riders later, he shifted me to his side. “I could use another beer.”
* * * *
We made it back to our seats in the stands with a beer already in us and another in our hands as someone readied the barrels and electric eye starter in the arena. Hank’s friend had gone off somewhere and someone Hank didn’t know sat in the seat. Which, from my experience all night, seemed a rarity.
I settled into my seat, the press of the crowd not as oppressive as the first time I’d climbed up there. Maybe I’d grown used to it. Then again, it coulda been the beer on top of the adrenaline crash from the run in with the Talbots and being front and center as two thousand pounds of pure muscle and bone did his best to grind a man into the ground. On top of going on thirty-six hours with no sleep. Yeah. That sounded more likely.
While we had talked to a few folks on the list and drank our beer on the concourse, all we had managed to accomplish was crossing their names off the list. We had no new leads. I definitely didn’t have the patience to play detective. I wanted concrete answers. I wanted a face to our problem. I wanted an action plan. Not sit on our asses and wait to be blindsided. Again.
Hank leaned over and nudged me with his elbow as a barrel racer ran through the electric eye at the end of her run; her time slotted her into fourth place. I had been in la la land and missed the first few runs. “Jenna’s up next.”
I sat up straighter, placed my beer in the holder in front of me, and focused on the alleyway where the riders got a running start at the barrels. The pounding of Angel’s hooves echoed into the arena before he and Jenna exploded onto the sand. The horse’s coat shone like polished granite, his black mane and tail and Jenna’s brunette one streamed out behind them, her starched white shirt with a line of rhinestones on the yoke was all the splash and sparkle she needed. Any more color, any more shine would have been nothing more than a distraction. Watching horse and rider together, their trust, their communication, was the true gem.
Hank’s fingers twined with mine, his grip fierce as he watched his daughter ride. His sharp whistle of encouragement pierced the air and made my right eardrum hum. Coming in on the right lead, they circled the first barrel on the right side, dirt flying, hooves scrambling then they galloped across the arena for the left-hand barrel. Hank squeezed my hand even tighter. “Easy, now!” He hollered, though there was no possibility Jenna could hear his warning.
He leaned into me as they slowed for the turn. “Angel always cuts in on the second barrel. He’s so intent on getting to the third.”
I watched. Angel cut in as predicted, a nudge with Jenna’s inside foot, a smooth pull on the inside rein, but Jenna’s knee brushed the top edge of the barrel as they squirted toward the end of the arena on a beeline for the third and final turn. Jenna never looked back, her laser focus on the next barrel. Behind her, the barrel spun and teetered in the deep, soft dirt. If it fell—a five-second penalty, as Hank had explained to me.
In a game where hundredths of a second could separate the winner from a loser, it didn’t take a genius to calculate that if the can fell, it would drop her out of the competition.
I forced my gaze from the barrel to her run. Felt the slightest release in the vise grip Hank had on my hand as the barrel settled into the dirt a good foot from where it had started. But it was up. That was all that mattered.
I released the grip I had on Hank’s knee after Jenna cleared the last barrel a little wide, but at least, with no question, this one would stay up. On the run to the finish line, she stood in the stirrups, arms stretched forward, her reins up near Angel’s neck, encouraging every last ounce of power and speed from the magnificent animal as they flew past the timer.
The alleyway swallowed them whole, a dark cavernous maw. Seconds passed before the tunnel disgorged another contestant. As the rider cleared the gate, Jenna and Angel’s time and placing flashed on the screen beneath the announcer’s booth at the end of the arena. First place.
By five hundredths of a second.
With an explosive whoop! Hank launched from his seat and swept me up in his arms as he stepped clear of the seating and spun me around on the stairs, his head flung back as hearty laughter erupted from deep within, his eyes flaring with unfettered, fatherly pride.
Then he grabbed my hand and towed me after him as he stormed down the stairs, our knees hammering up and down, rapid as the needle on a sewing machine, as we descended the stairs to catch up with Jenna.
We found her and Angel by one of the warm-up arenas. Excited, animated, as she talked with her friends. Angel stood with his head lowered, a rear leg cocked, his breathing still rapid, but unlabored. His far ear stood at half-mast as the other swiveled like radar, focused on Jenna’s voice. His heavy-lidded eyes made him seem stoned with what I could only describe as self-satisfied tilt to his lips. Yeah, he knew he’d done well.
From twenty feet away, Jenna glanced up at us. “Dad!” She tossed Angel’s reins to Quinn. Her horse opened his eye a fraction wider before it slid back down. She ran to Hank and he swept her up in his arms as he’d done with me and spun her for several revolutions before setting her back down on her feet. My heart lodged in my throat.
She’d called him Dad.
Not Hank, not Nash. Dad. Had Hank caught that in the excitement?
As I stepped up to hug her, I caught Hank’s eye over her shoulder and witnessed the flash of red around his eyes, the excess of moisture that he blinked back and hid beneath the lowered brim of his hat. Yeah. He’d heard it too.
“Amazing run!” I said as I smothered her with a hug.
“Thanks.” Jenna practically vibrated. “It may not hold. There are awesome teams coming u
p behind me. It’s our personal best, anyway.” She shrugged as if it wouldn’t matter if she dropped from first. No, it wouldn’t crush her if a rider nudged her out; she was made of sterner stuff. Like her dad.
However, a win would be a bright light in an otherwise dark and shitty week.
“I’ll unsaddle and cool Angel out if you want to catch the rest of the runs,” Hank offered to Jenna as we walked back to her horse and she reclaimed her reins with a nod of thanks to Quinn. As for Angel—though still saddled and with sweat starting to dry on his flanks—he slept, not even an ear twitch or the lazy swish of his tail.
“I don’t think my nerves can take watching. Besides, I’d rather take care of Angel myself.” A stockman—err, stockwoman—through and through. Dale, Lottie, and Hank had done a fine job of raising her.
The smile slipped from Hank’s face as if gently rebuffed. “Sure, sure,” he nodded. “Well, then”—he hooked his thumbs into his front pockets then glanced to me and then back to Jenna— “we’ll just—”
“You could come with,” Jenna offered. “Both of you.” She included me with a sincere smile.
As much as I appreciated the invitation, the two of them could always use a little father–daughter time. I didn’t want to intrude. As much as I enjoyed watching her run, with everything that had happened tonight, a few minutes of downtime for myself would go a long way to righting my ship, a ship that had been listing precariously for a few days now. “You two go ahead, I’ll catch up in a bit.”
Hank hesitated. “You sure?”
I tossed my head in Jenna and Angel’s direction; they’d already turned and headed back toward the trailers. “Go on.” I added a reassuring smile.
I knew the smile never made it to my eyes when he still didn’t move from his spot. His brows furrowed as he considered me as if sensing something not quite right, but like a few of the times before, he held his tongue and accepted my decision with a curt nod. I didn’t need, or want, coddling or him to extract the truth from me. Thankfully, he respected that.
He turned and trotted off after his daughter, the hitch in his stride from his injured leg the most pronounced I’d seen it since we’d met. He wasn’t a man to complain, or one to let it stop him from spending time with his daughter. A quality I could appreciate.
I turned in the opposite direction and headed for the truck and the relative peace and quiet of the parking lot. I needed to stop all that admiring. Forget all the ways I enjoyed being with him, having his hand in mine or his lips on my lips. That I’d desperately wanted those lips on other, more intimate parts of my anatomy on more than one occasion tonight should be a giant red flag—a marker like the phosphorescent tracers that light up the night sky, highlighting my gun’s shooting trajectory, illuminating for all to see that this little infatuation was heading straight toward an ammo dump. When it hit, it would explode with a monstrous wall of flames, an eardrum ripping boom, the concussive forces on the body so massive, so brutal, someone was gonna get seriously maimed.
You, Parish. That someone is you.
I brushed shoulders with other spectators, walking sideways to squeeze between the people and the fence. I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t because Hank was no longer acting as a battering ram through the jostling crowd. No, I lacked sufficient oxygen because an armored Humvee had parked on my chest, squeezing the life out of me. My chest heaved, shallow and useless and my heart beat as fast as a hummingbird’s. My fingertips and toes tingled as I scooted through the entrance gate and stumbled into the parking lot searching for Hank’s truck.
Panic attack.
That I’d have one over a relationship or the promise of one would have made me laugh if I could’ve sucked in enough air.
Somehow, I made it to his truck without collapsing in a heap behind a rancher’s massive set of dually tires. I hadn’t asked Hank for his keys, somehow knowing he’d have left with me if he’d known where I was headed. No way would I take this night away from him.
No way would I come between him and Jenna.
The panic attacks never lasted long. They weren’t fatal. They just made you believe for one crazy moment that they were. In fact, my breathing had already eased, and my heart rate had ratcheted down a notch or two, but I had an overwhelming urge to curl up into the fetal position, close my eyes, and wish the world away. I fought the bent latch on the tailgate and wrestled it down. Because there were no cable stays, instead of landing horizontally like a bench seat, the tailgate flopped toward the ground, banging against the steel bumper and landing at a sixty-degree angle to the ground.
Hank had an old saddle and saddle pad in the back of the truck along with a couple gas cans strapped in tight in front of the driver’s side wheel well. I boosted myself into the truck bed, settled the saddle to use as a headrest with the pad in front for added comfort and protection from the steel truck bed that had gone cold since the sun had set.
I groaned aloud as I settled back, my knees at the edge of the truck bed, my lower legs following the angle of the tailgate. Far from a Barcalounger, but pure luxury compared to stretching out on the hard, cold steel of a Hercules troop transport plane. Much quieter too.
Out here, the announcer and the intermittent cheers of the crowd faded into the background. The harsh, over-bright arena lights washed out many of the stars, but the night was clear, the temperature cool enough to raise a few goose bumps but not so bad it made me shiver. I let my mind wander back over the events of the evening. A lot had happened in a few short hours.
I found it disconcerting that instead of analyzing the people we hadn’t managed to cross off the list or reconstructing the run in with the Talbots in the attempt to discern a detail that might tip me as to their potential involvement with the barn fire, my mind strayed to all things Hank.
His hand in mine, the way he protected me. Not against the Talbot brothers, because the confrontation with them had been the least frightening of the events this evening. A direct threat I could handle. I might not win, but I’d go down fighting. No, Hank protected me from my own shit swirling around in my brain. Not in a way that made me think it wasn’t something I couldn’t handle on my own, but in a way that said he had my six. That he knew I could handle it, but if I was going down, it would be with a fight and he’d gladly go down with me. The tightness returned to my chest and my throat threatened to close again. Not from another panic attack, but from the realization that with Hank beside me, I was no longer alone, and the relief overwhelmed me.
Knowing I wasn’t worthy of a man like him didn’t make me want him any less. If he knew even a fraction of what I’d done…Maybe, he’d understand. My throat spasmed painfully. No, unless you’d been there yourself, done it yourself, you could never understand. Never fully comprehend no matter how many times the stories were told. Maybe in a way that was also a good thing.
War was hell.
I heard the scuff of boots on the parking lot gravel. I imagined I’d conjured up Hank by thinking about him so hard, but the footfalls were all wrong—no hint of the stutter in Hank’s gait from his injured leg.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck and Dread tumbled out of his bed and landed heavy like a hunk of lead in the pit of my stomach. Then came the bark of ironic laughter. “What do we have here?”
The woman who is gonna kick your skinny ass.
However, I assumed his question was rhetorical. In one fluid motion, I sat and pushed myself off the bed of the truck. Thankfully, he was alone. “Get lost, Talbot.”
It was easy to keep the fear out of my voice because none of the Talbot brothers scared me. Compared to the Taliban, they were nothing but backcountry punks. No telling which one this was, but enough light splashed over from the arena for me to tell he lacked any telltale bruising on his jaw. Not the brother Hank had decked.
He crowded my space, less than a foot away. With the tailgate behind me, I couldn’t back
up, but that didn’t matter because the only direction I planned on going was over the top of him. He tipped the last of his beer down his throat with a loud gulp, though he kept his eyes on me. Then he crushed the clear plastic cup in his hand and tossed it away. A flash of movement on either side of my peripheral vision caught my attention. His brothers. I guess cowards like the Talbots didn’t hunt without a pack.
I leaned back against the tailgate, crossing my arms casually. “Not man enough to come at me by yourself, so you brought backup?”
His eyes flashed bright with the insult, but he smiled. “Oh, no, sugar. It’s not like that at all.” The last word he stretched into three syllables. He paused as if he expected me to ask what it was like. Giving him the satisfaction of asking would be like chumming the ocean for sharks before I jumped in for a swim. “You see, me and my brothers…we like to share.”
Scare tactic? Or were these brothers bigger assholes than they’d let on? A welcomed calm blanketed me. If this man touched me, he would regret it. Three on one, it became harder to predict a favorable outcome for me, but I had my knife sheathed inside my right boot if things got too ugly.
The Talbot in front of me inched closer and raised his hand as if to palm my cheek. Hank arose out of the darkness behind the brothers. Even in the dark, the intent in Hank’s eyes was clear. I shook my head slightly and to my surprise, he stopped silently in his tracks. Still, he wasn’t the kind of man to stay in the background for long.
“Ah, ah, ah,” Hank warned. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Talbot’s hand froze inches from my face, but he wasn’t as startled as I’d expected him to be, or he hid it well. “Yeah, Nash? Whatcha gonna do about it?” The two other brothers closed in ranks. Hank would have to go through them to get to the one in front of me.