by Tina Leonard
That had been a crazy wild night. Harper had been on their tail, and they’d barely eluded her, thus avoiding getting kicked off the team before they were ready.
“Hey, how do you do that shit where you stand on your horse and aim arrows at any target?” Rebel asked. “It’s driving Fallon nuts. He can stand on his horse, keep his balance, and fire a rifle, but that whole bow-and-arrow thing takes strength and a great eye.”
“I don’t know,” Winter said absently. “I’ve been able to do it since I was a kid.” She wasn’t going to tell these knuckleheads her secrets, their team secrets. She and Cassidy and Micaela were a team inside a team, just waiting on the right time to ditch this town. They needed money, and they needed to build their resume. Needed to stay low where their folks wouldn’t find them. Despite the fact that the three of them were of age, it was always a possibility. None of them had any desire for contact with their families. Winter glanced around the room, then at her watch. “Hey, you guys should probably take off. Harper might return any time now.”
A truck door slammed, and the three girls sat up straight.
“Oh, shit,” Cassidy exclaimed. “That’s got to be her! She’ll have seen your truck.”
“No, she won’t. We parked at Redfeather’s and walked over to the bungalow.” Demon laughed. “We didn’t want any blowback from Ivy or Judy.”
“Here she comes!” Cassidy scooped up all the beer bottles, scurrying with them to her room.
“You guys need to get the hell out,” Winter said. She headed into her room, the fellows on her tail. Rebel locked the door behind them, and Jake stood by the window.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get in the closet!” Winter hissed.
“Wait for it,” Rebel said. He grinned down at Winter. “Thanks for inviting us. Next time, let’s meet at the creek.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Winter said, “if Harper finds you in my room.”
The men smirked. “Wait for it,” Demon said.
“Wait for what?” Winter frantically glanced at the door. “I hear Michael in the other room!” Which meant Harper wasn’t far behind, back from dinner and probably another night staring at Declan.
A knock sounded on the door. Winter’s eyes went wide as she stared at the three handsome men staring down at her like wolves. Rebel slid the window up.
“We’ve done this plenty of times,” he said. “We’re pros.”
To her astonishment, he leaned down and kissed her right on the mouth. And it wasn’t horrible, Winter realized—in fact, it was kind of sweet. Sexy.
Then he went out the window.
Demon leaned down and kissed her, on the cheek, grinned, and slipped out the window.
And then Jake gave her a smooch to end all smooches.
“Wanted to end your night on a high note,” he whispered. “A girl as beautiful as you deserves lots of high notes.”
The knock sounded again, and as Winter’s heart hammered, Jake went out the window with a grin.
Three shadows disappeared in the darkness, heading toward town.
“Just a minute!” Winter called, closing the window quietly. She checked herself in the mirror—she didn’t look like she’d just been kissed by two hot hunks—and opened the door.
Harper stared at her. “I was starting to get worried.”
“About what?” Winter arranged her face in an innocent expression—but not too innocent. Harper wasn’t stupid.
“Why you weren’t opening the door. Why I heard the window closing.” Harper raised a brow.
“It got a little warm in my room.”
Harper glanced around the room, seemed satisfied. “See you for practice in the morning.”
“Harper?”
Harper turned. “Yes?”
She looked at Harper’s flushed face. “Why did you really take us on?”
“Hell needs a team. We’re building something good here.” The flush on Harper’s face deepened, and Winter wondered if she felt all right.
“When you hired us, you didn’t mention anything about bullfighting. You never brought it up at all.”
“So?” Harper looked at her. “What are you asking me?”
“If you really want a bullfighting team.”
“No,” Harper said, her tone definitive. “Absolutely not.”
“Because?”
Irritation crossed her trainer’s face. “Look. If you’ve been talking to Judy again, you need to ignore her when she starts ranting about bullfighting. She ran her team her way, and I’m running this team my way.”
“Do you still want to? Bullfight?” Winter asked.
“Not really. That dream died. For all of us.” She shrugged. “I’m going to go read Michael a story. Tonight we begin a new chapter in the canon of Paddington Bear, and I’m really looking forward to this time with my son. Goodnight, Winter.”
Harper left, and Winter closed the door. She let out a squeal when someone tapped on the window. Her friends were outside, grins on their faces.
“What are you doing?” Winter demanded.
“The guys texted us. We’re going to join them at the creek. Lock your door so Harper can’t catch us and come on!”
Winter glanced at the door, thought about Harper’s flushed face. She really hadn’t looked all that well.
But what the heck. It wasn’t her problem; she wasn’t here to mother Harper.
She and her team were here to raise Hell. And that’s what she was going to do, while she was still young and fearless, not weighed down with a kid and a dog and a struggling team caught between two big-haired beauty queens. “Screw it,” she muttered, hurrying to lock the bedroom door.
She slid out the window, and Cassidy and Micaela quietly pushed it down behind her. Then they ran to the road to hop in Jake’s truck, curfews and rules forgotten in the rush to walk on the wild side of Hell.
Chapter Ten
The knock on the front door of the Honeysuckle Bungalow surprised Harper. It was ten at night, well past curfew. Michael was tucked into his bed, barely able to go to sleep for chattering about Toad. Toad was a gift to her son’s soul, Harper had realized—and Michael had flourished from the unexpected surprise. Not only had Declan given Michael a puppy, he’d also given him the gift of responsibility. A full list of chores related to Toad had come with the puppy, a no-nonsense bible on meeting the needs of his new pet and best friend.
She had to admit Declan had stolen a piece of her heart with his unexpected gift. “Who is it?” she asked before opening the door, very surprised when she heard Cameron and Ava say, “Just us chickens. Let us in!”
“A text wouldn’t suffice?” Harper asked as her friends trooped in.
“Not for this message. And you didn’t show up at Redfeather’s tonight. Your calendar’s very busy these days.” Cameron flopped down on the sofa, as did Ava.
“I miss this place,” Ava said.
“I do, too, a little.” Cameron pushed her springy red hair up into a knot and smiled. “But I’d miss waking up with Saint more.”
“Tea?” she asked her friends, but Ava shook her head.
“We’re only here for a second.” She glanced toward the bedrooms, where all the doors were closed. “Michael asleep?”
“Hopefully everyone is in their bed sound asleep.” Harper sank onto the sofa near her friends, curling a leg under her. “Although I doubt very seriously my team is asleep. Probably texting boys or something.”
Ava and Cameron glanced at each other.
“Maybe a glass of wine,” Cameron suggested. “I’ll get it.”
“Help yourself.” Harper smiled at Ava. “How’s Wyatt?”
“Sleeping through the night, eats like a champ. Wants his dad all the time.” Ava grinned. “That little man is going to be a daddy’s boy. I always thought it’d be the other way around. Where’s my mama’s boy?”
A little pang shot into Harper’s heart. Of course Michael had never had a chance to figure out if he was a mama
’s boy or a daddy’s boy. Michael would never know his father. “Wyatt will change, I bet. Michael and I are really close.” She didn’t know what she’d do without her son. There wasn’t a day she didn’t wake up, anxious to see his smile. He just simply made her feel better—he was the sun in her life. “I hear you’re trying for another.”
“Declan tell you? Good news travels fast.” Ava accepted a glass of wine from Cameron, as did Harper.
“Thanks.” Harper sipped her wine, then leaned back. “So why are you really here, besides to overrun my curfew?”
“Well,” Cameron said, “we want to interest you in a business plan.”
“I’m listening eagerly. I hope it’s a business plan that earns money. Profitability sounds good to me about now.”
Ava nodded. “We’d like to take over your team.”
Harper blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a lot of responsibility. It takes hours of your day, which leaves you no time to practice.” Cameron pulled a thick white pad from her purse, opening it. “We’ve drawn up some ideas about who could keep Michael for you while you’re traveling.”
Harper held up a hand. “Where is this coming from? And why in the world would I leave my son behind?”
“So you can train.” Ava took the pad from Cameron. “Consider us your support team.”
“I’m not training.” Harper was completely perplexed. “And I’m certainly not leaving Michael.”
Cameron and Ava looked at each other. “We got our chance,” Cameron said. “We want you to have yours.”
“Thank you. I understand what you’re trying to do. I appreciate it. But I promise you, I have no regrets about not going on with bullfighting, any more than you do, Cameron, by becoming a cop.”
Ava checked her notes. “It’s not fair that you don’t get a shot. We went first, which might have been a little selfish of us.”
Cameron nodded. “We want to make up for that.”
“You weren’t selfish at all.” Harper frowned. “I think everything has happened the way it was meant to. You’re both married, and I have no inclination whatsoever to even have a steady guy.” This was a bit of a stretch, but there was no reason to add any fuel to the fire her friends were already fanning. It was sweet what they were trying to do, but totally unnecessary.
“You’ve been carrying a torch for Declan since the day we got here,” Ava said softly. “That’s the other thing bothering us.”
“It’s none of your business,” Harper protested. “I appreciate your concern, but this team is a part of my life now. I wouldn’t dream of giving it up.”
“But you’re giving up everything,” Cameron said. “You’re not about to give Declan a chance, and you spend all your time with the team. What’s left of your time Michael gets. But just think, Harper. If you bullfight, you and Michael are together again, all the time, just like before. Remember when we first came to Hell? You and Michael had been living in a small place, true, but you were together. Training, and being a family.”
“You’ve taken on a lot,” Ava said.
“I’m fine. Michael’s fine.” Harper took a deep breath. “I don’t want him moving around with me from place to place anymore, following the rodeo or exhibitions or training or anything else. He’s in school in Hawk, he’s made friends.” She thought about Toad. “I haven’t given up my dream at all. We’ve gained new dreams.”
Her friends looked at her sadly.
“Brave talk, Harper.” Ava sipped her wine. “Of all of us, you were the one with the real talent. You can do it!”
“Judy sent you,” Harper said with a flash of clarity. “Damn it, you’ve let Judy get to you!”
They looked slightly sheepish.
“Not Judy,” Cameron said. “Fallon just happened to mention—”
“Fallon? What the hell does Fallon have to do with my life?” Harper was astonished that her best friends would even bother to discuss her life with a Horseman, a man who knew little to nothing about her.
“Don’t get hot.” Cameron sighed. “It just made sense. We weren’t inclined to listen to him, but once he said what he’d come to say, we thought we had to mention it to you. It really isn’t fair that you never got your shot. You came to Hell to be a bullfighter, Harper.”
“I’m fine. I promise I am. And I’m just a little surprised you’d listen to anything Fallon has to say. Fallon is nothing but trouble, like all the Horsemen.”
“The trouble is,” Ava said with a sigh, “and we really didn’t want to play this card, but Harper, your team is out of control.”
She stared at them. “I’ve only had them here a month. We’re doing fine.”
Cameron shook her head. “They’re running you, Harper.”
She sank back into the sofa, stunned, aware that an intervention of sorts had been planned—for her. “You have been talking to Judy!”
“Actually, we heard from Judy, and Jimmy Merrill, and Madame Chen, and Hattie Hawthorne.” Ava’s pixie face under her short brown hair was concerned. “And Steel, too.”
“So everyone’s discussing my team in Hell.” Harper felt frozen, as if all the support she’d ever felt in Hell had leaked away. “That’s why I’m getting this late-night visit. You’ve all been over at Redfeather’s, discussing my team.” She was beyond hurt, beyond angry, too numb to feel anything other than betrayed.
“Harper, we love you, love you like a sister, you know that.” Cameron looked concerned. “The only reason everyone’s discussing the team is because we don’t want to see you hurt.”
“I’m hurt,” Harper replied. “Trust me, I’m hurt.”
“We’re just the messengers,” Cameron said, “but feel free to shoot us if you feel it necessary. With words, of course.”
She didn’t laugh. She couldn’t. “So let me get this straight. First, Fallon talked to you, but then the denizens of Hell talked to you, and taking all this advice under advisement, here you are. To save me from myself.”
“Sort of.” Ava poured herself some more wine. “And to save Hell.”
“You want my team,” Harper said dully. “You think I can’t handle the team I chose.”
“It’s not going well, honey,” Cameron said softly. “You know they’re a handful.”
“I selected them because they’re strong, tough, determined. Talented at trick riding like I’ve never seen.” Harper looked around the Honeysuckle Bungalow. “The honest truth none of us have ever admitted is that we didn’t have the burn to finally kick it over into making it happen. We fell in love, we fell for other goals, we did anything but stick to the plan. Well, that’s what plans are for, sticking to.” She straightened, realizing the hurt was passing into anger, which felt better than pain. “We could have made it, we chose not to. These girls can do it. They’re different from us.”
They looked at her without speaking. “No, you cannot have my team. I’m insulted you would even ask.”
The pain came back, slicing through the anger. Harper waited for her friends to speak—her best friends in the world—not trusting herself. The last thing she wanted to do was overreact, say something that couldn’t be unsaid later.
It was so hard not to. She thought about Michael and how delighted he was about Toad, the first thing in his life, she recognized, that felt like it was his. And she knew exactly how that felt.
This team was hers. And they were sticking together—unlike the previous team, which was sitting in her living room right now. That team was so far in the past, both from a team standard and from a friendship point that she was a little scared at how easily they’d become broken.
“We’re so sorry, Harper.” Ava looked at her. “So very sorry.”
“Remember when you took the team over from Judy, and she said she couldn’t believe her own team had stabbed her in the back? That was us,” Cameron reminded her.
“So you’re here to stab me in return? Because Judy’s orchestrated this whole thing?” Harper asked.
“Not just Judy. Everyone on the town council felt it was important to talk this over with you.” Cameron looked sad. “You’re tough and you’re talented, Harper. More than any of us. But you can’t run this team, train them, and be a mother. Which as the only woman in the room without a child, may I say is the most important thing of all.”
It was no secret Cameron and Saint hadn’t gotten pregnant as fast as they would have liked. Every month probably seemed like eternity to her friend. Harper felt sympathy gently draw some of the anger away—but she couldn’t let it all go. “Thanks, but I really don’t need anyone to tell me how important being a mother is. Michael is the moon and sun in my life.”
“That’s not our focus,” Ava said. “What the town—what we’re—trying to get across is that you stand a great chance of harming Hell with well-meaning intentions if these young ladies become scandal bait.”
A door opened, and Michael came out of the bedroom wearing Scooby-Doo pajamas. Harper got up, went to push back her sleepy-eyed son’s blond hair. “Why are you up, sweetheart? Did we wake you?”
“I can’t sleep,” Michael said. “Can I have a drink of water?”
“Of course you can.” Harper took him by the hand to lead him to the kitchen, but he stopped beside the sofa where Cameron and Ava were.
“Come to Auntie Cameron.” Cameron’s voice was wheedling as she put out her arms, and Harper felt a flash of intuition of her friend’s pain at the time it was taking to conceive. “You’re so busy you never have time for me.”
“Or me,” Ava said. “Wyatt misses his big cousin.”
Michael went to plop down between his “aunts.” Harper went into the kitchen to get her son some water, pushing back the words she’d heard tonight as she drew the tap. Those were her best friends in the world in the other room; they wouldn’t have come at this hour, when they knew she’d be less frantically busy, if they hadn’t felt like their message was an important one. Harper drew a sharp breath. On so many levels, she knew Ava and Cameron—and the town—were probably right—but still, she wanted her team to have a fighting chance. Micaela and Winter and Cassidy were so strong, so tough, so talented—and she wanted them to succeed so badly. Not just for her, but for them.