by Dahlia West
Vaguely, Jack wondered if the screen would hold.
“No, Julio!” Erin called out. “Shoo!”
The chicken glared at Jack and shrieked loudly, calling him out.
“Shoo!” Erin shouted again. “Go on. Shoo!”
Finally, the chicken kicked some dirt at Jack and then strutted away. He pooped on the ground, though, right near the stairs.
“Nasty bastard,” Jack hissed. He collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs, grabbed a napkin, and dabbed at the blood trickling down his left arm.
“Are you okay?” Erin asked him again.
“I don’t know,” he said, giving her a sharp glare. “Do chickens have rabies?”
“He’s not just a chicken. He’s a rooster,” she replied, heading toward the screen door. “I’ll go get the eggs. I’ll be right back.”
The door banged shut and Jack glared at it. “I’m not driving you to the ER again!” he shouted after her.
Goddamn chicken was worse than a junkyard dog.
He listened intently but didn’t hear any screaming. He supposed that was a good sign. He was about to get up to check on her when he heard her boots on the wood steps.
Unbelievably, she had a full basket and no fresh wounds.
Jack relaxed back into the chair but glared at her. “You trained that chicken to attack people,” he accused, pressing a square of paper towel to his arm.
Erin smirked at him and set the basket down on the counter. “I told you. He’s a rooster. Not a hen. They’re very territorial.”
“Who keeps attack chickens?” Jack demanded.
Erin didn’t answer him. Instead, she turned on the faucet and ran a cloth underneath the water. She elbowed the water off and crossed the room toward him. “Here,” she said. “Let me take care of it.”
Jack drew his arm away and sulked. “I have the bird flu.”
She snorted and reached for him again. She pulled his arm out away from his body and laid it on the table. Then she picked up the cloth and started to wipe off the blood with her one good hand.
Jack felt a fresh stab of guilt as he thought back to the day before, after her attack. He hadn’t cleaned her up. In fact, he’d told her she was a mess. “How do you handle crazy horses and chickens all day?” he asked her. He wanted to ask her if she was okay. But he didn’t know how.
She shrugged and smiled wistfully. “I love it. I’ve always lived here. I grew up just a mile down the road. All I wanted was a little place, a few horses.”
It seemed like such a simple dream to Jack. He wanted power, and respect, and money, and—”
“And to be the best damn horse rehabilitator in the state,” Erin added.
Jack smiled. Now they were on more familiar ground. “Are you?”
She paused and looked right into his eyes. The fire he saw there, the drive, the determination, was like looking into a mirror. “I will be.”
Chapter Eighteen
‡
Jack didn’t laugh.
Erin noticed that right away. He didn’t smirk, or roll his eyes, or give her a sardonic look like so many others had when she’d sat in on animal anatomy courses at South Dakota State side-by-side with (mostly male) veterinary students or when she’d started to hold clinics at the rodeo after she’d gotten her Animal Science degree.
Horses were still a man’s world, even in this day and age. Their care, their feeding, their training, their breeding were all the nearly-exclusive province of roughneck cowboys who had no use for a woman (except to also feed and breed).
“I helped Bee,” she told Jack. “I bought her right out of college. With my own money,” she added. “She was a filthy mess. Skinny and covered in mud. I doubt her previous owner had fed her very often. And they’d hobbled her with baling wire, for being too feisty.”
“Hobbled?”
Erin’s jaw clenched. Even the memory of it made her face hot, her belly churn. “They tied her legs together at the ankle,” she seethed.
Even Jack looked shocked. “With…wire?”
Erin nodded. “The cuts just above her hooves were so deep that they’d nearly severed her tendons. She could barely walk. The first vet told me I’d wasted my money buying her and I should just put her down. The second one, at least, gave me some salve.” She rolled her eyes. “I took care of her, though. I fixed her up.”
In fact, Bee was Erin’s greatest success story and it was well known in at least four counties that it was Erin Walker who’d single-handedly rescued that horse and turned her into a champion barrel racer. Of course, in the official story she was merely ‘Buck Walker’s daughter.’ Erin tried not to let the swell of pride she felt be diminished by the qualifier.
Bee was beautiful and still feisty…and the love of Erin’s life. It was Bee that had convinced Erin that Thunder Ridge was possible. Bee was living, breathing proof that Erin had talent. And soon King would be another testament to her healing abilities.
Then Thunder Ridge would blossom.
Life, it seemed, didn’t want to let her lose sight of the fact that it hadn’t happened yet. The sound of a vehicle coming down the drive caught her attention and she abandoned Jack to see who it was.
With a grudging sigh, she threw the damp cloth into the sink.
Jack stood up and peered out the kitchen window as well. “Who’s that?”
Erin came up beside him and looked, then she sighed loudly. “Really?” she said sarcastically. “You don’t recognize God when you see him?”
Chapter Nineteen
‡
Jack watched as Erin, abandoning her hot breakfast, walked to the cork board that hung on the wall next to a phone and plucked a pushpin from it, along with a check, and headed out the front door of the house.
Jack walked away from his own breakfast to follow her.
An enormous white truck gleamed in the morning sunlight. A rope twisted into the shape of a “W” adorned the driver’s side door, which swung open so that a barrel-sized man in a ten-gallon hat could plant his boots in Erin’s driveway.
“It’s early, Dad,” Erin told him, shielding her eyes with her hand.
The man gave her a million-dollar grin and shrugged. “Early to bed, early to rise…”
Jack hated him already.
It seemed, apparently, that the feeling was mutual, because the big man’s eyes lit upon Jack and assessed him hard. His grin faltered, but only for a moment. “Don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, holding out his hand.
Jack made no move to take it.
Buck shook off the lack of welcome and looked around the property. “Well, where’s Hank?” he asked. “He wasn’t at the diner this morning.”
Erin’s lip quivered, but Buck didn’t see it.
“Gone,” Jack replied smoothly.
Buck turned away from the barn to face him. “Gone?” he repeated. “What do you mean, gone?”
Jack shrugged. “He seemed like he was all thumbs to me. Bet he’s out drunk somewhere, with those thumbs up his ass.”
Buck’s nose wrinkled and Jack could bet he was thinking of the late Hank and his love affair with Anheuser Bush. Jack hadn’t missed the empty cans strewn all over the inside cab. Chances were, other people in town knew about it, too.
If anyone ever fished ol’ Hank out of the pond, Jack and Erin might get lucky and DUI would be the official cause of death.
“Erin?” Buck demanded of his daughter.
Erin’s fingers tightened on the check she was holding.
Jack held his breath and prayed that Erin could hold it together.
“He was a drunk,” she explained. “I hated to do it, but I had to let him go.”
Buck snorted, clearly unhappy, but practically snatched the check out of her hand anyway.
Erin sighed and Jack thought she looked tired. More tired than nervous now, and that, Jack supposed, was good. “You know,” she said, “I could just mail this to you every month.”
Buck smiled and pocketed the carefully folde
d check. “But this way I get to see you.”
Erin scowled.
Jack got the impression that he was watching a well-rehearsed dance, performed so many times that the players knew it by heart and were perhaps only performing it now out of habit. Or stubbornness.
Of course Buck Walker could get his check in the mail, like any money lender, but then, the man wouldn’t get a chance to look around the place and assess either its growing or dwindling value.
The way he was right now.
Jack had seen bikers eye-fuck strippers with less greed and lust than this man was doing right here.
“Still haven’t had that roof fixed,” Buck drawled, looking across the driveway at the barn.
Erin scowled and rubbed her cast on her hip. “I’ll get to it,” she vowed.
She wasn’t going to soon, obviously. Not any time within the next six weeks.
Buck smirked a little and that got a rise out of Jack, who’d finally puzzled out something that had been bothering him. He made eye contact with Erin and gave his chin a little jerk in the direction of the house. She frowned, nervous, but eventually stepped back.
Buck, at least, waited until Erin was back on the porch before starting in on Jack. “She needs a man around here,” he said, eyeing Jack distastefully, making it clear that, in his opinion, Jack wasn’t the man for the job.
Jack smirked at him. “One on your payroll, for instance?”
For a moment, Buck hesitated, blinking at him in surprise.
“One that skulks around, fucking shit up. An honest to goodness saboteur. Pretty sure property damage is illegal, Buck. Even in this shit-hole part of the state.”
The man’s eyes relaxed and the corner of his mouth started to quirk up. Jack recognized the expression. A week ago, he’d have been wearing it himself. “Let me guess,” he said to Buck. “You and the sheriff have coffee on Saturdays. Down at the local greasy spoon.”
Buck didn’t reply, but it was obvious.
“So, you might be able to get the law to sweep it under the rug. I’m sure a guy like you, with your reputation, it wouldn’t be too hard. And that’s important to you, isn’t it, Buck? Your reputation.”
The smirk froze on the older man’s lips.
Jack’s mouth now sported a smirk of his own. “Well, hell yes it is,” he replied to his own question, mocking Buck’s heavy twang. “Got your Super Duty Ford, your thousand-dollar boots, and a belt buckle that’s about to make me go fucking blind. Cheyenne Row-Dee-Oh,” he said, parsing out the syllables, laying on the sarcasm. “That’s the big time, isn’t it, Buck? Of course, it was a few years ago. And that buckle’s holding back a whole lotta gut these days.”
Buck’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared.
Jack was glad he could still read assholes as easily as the Sunday paper. “But you still got that reputation, don’t you, just the same. So, the law won’t touch you, but what about the folks in your little pissant town, Buck? What happens when their tongues start wagging, like they always seem to do in little pissant towns? What happens when people start whispering that you ordered the rape of your own daughter? Just for a piece of land and a falling down barn?”
Buck’s mouth dropped open and his chest puffed out. “What?! I never—!”
Jack shook his head and gave the man a fake look of concern. “Will it matter? Will it really matter, Buck, what you did or didn’t do? I mean, you sent ol’ Hank over here to disable the truck, tear down the barn roof, and who knows what else? Will it really be so hard to believe that when all that didn’t work, didn’t wipe out her bank account, didn’t force to her sell, that you tried…other means? That you told ol’ Hank to…get a little more…aggressive?”
Buck Walker shook his head and jabbed a finger at Jack. “Now, you listen!” he snapped. “You had just better stop running your fucking mouth! You’ve got no proof—none—that I did any of that! And Erin never said anything about—”
Jack shrugged and dipped into his jeans pocket. “Like she’s going to tell you, of all people. And I don’t have proof. Not much anyway. No. You’re right about that. Just…this little thing.” He drew out the silver “W” keychain, the one that matched the symbol on Buck’s truck doors and on the arch over the driveway to the Flying W Ranch itself, and dangled it. It glinted in the sun, not really a rival for Buck’s gold belt buckle, but still…
“Son of a bitch!” Buck hissed and made a try for it.
Jack pulled it out of reach of the man’s meaty hand. “I’ll hold on to it for you.”
Buck stopped, tossed a guilty glance over his shoulder at the house and at Erin who was watching them from the doorway. She looked puzzled at their exchange, but she wasn’t close enough to hear them and Jack knew the truck was blocking most of her view. “Does…” Buck asked, wiping his brow. “Does she know?”
Jack shook his head. “Not yet. But you can bet when she’s able to hear it, I’m going to tell her. I’m going to tell her just how far you took things.”
“I never did that!” Buck hissed, even lower this time. “I never told him to hurt Erin. I would never, ever do that! That’s…that’s sick!”
Surprisingly, Jack actually believed the older man. He might have sabotaged a few things around Erin’s ranch, or had a hand in it, but Jack could see how revolted Buck was at the idea that Erin had almost met such a grisly end.
The old man wiped his brow again, then his nose. “Is…is she hurt? Did he hurt her?”
Jack snorted. “He broke her arm.”
“But…” Buck pawed at the dirt with his boot, like one of Erin’s horses. He sighed heavily, gearing himself up for the million-dollar question. “Did he rape her? Did he rape my little girl?”
Jack shrugged. “Does it matter?”
Buck’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck? Of course it does!”
“No,” Jack argued. “It really doesn’t. He had her on the ground, pants down around her knees, with his cock out. You think she’s somehow spared if he didn’t actually stick it in her? She got hurt, Buck. On your watch, by your guy.”
Buck’s eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t supposed to happen!”
“You keep saying that like it makes it okay. You made her a target. For a piece of fucking land at the ass end of nowhere.”
Buck opened his mouth, possibly to protest some more, but wisely shut it again. After a moment, he actually took a step away from Jack, back to the house, toward Erin.
Jack grabbed him above the elbow. “Don’t you fucking go near her,” he growled, “or I’ll break your arm.”
Buck turned back and searched Jack’s eyes. He apparently didn’t like what he saw there because he whispered, “What can I do?”
Jack wasn’t sure if he meant what he could do to keep Jack from kicking his ass or what he could do to help Erin or what he could do about it now that Hank was long gone. Jack took option B and decided for all of them.
“First off, you’re going to leave her the fuck alone. You’ve done more than enough. If Erin wants to talk to you, then so be it. But right now, she’s not interested. You’re also going to stop taking interest on her loan.”
The man’s eyes widened. “I—”
“You’re what, Buck? You’re fucking fleecing her and you damn well know it. From now on she’s paying you principal only. Zero interest. You’re done shaking down your daughter for money.”
“I—It’s a business arrangement!” Buck argued.
Jack spat on the ground at Buck’s feet, barely missing the toe of the leather-grain boot. “She’s your fucking kid.”
Scratch had been like that, playing all the angles, all the time. Jack’s old man had played the game so hard that Jack was never really sure if he was Scratch’s son or just a pawn.
He took a deep breath, bringing himself back under control. “And you’d better hope, Buck, that ol’ Hank manages to duck every cop and highway patrolman between here and wherever he’s headed. Because if he gets busted, for anything—for speeding—he j
ust might have an interesting story to tell about you, one that’ll get him a plea deal for felony sexual assault.”
Jack watched Buck absorb his words. It was sometimes better to let people weigh all their options, come to the right decision themselves. Finally, with head hung low, Buck drew out his wallet, also leather grain, also expensive.
Jack had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.
Buck opened it and pulled out two one-hundred-dollar bills, barely a dent in the bankroll he was carrying, Jack noticed, and passed them over.
Jack grinned at him and folded the bills in his hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
As he stepped past Buck and rounded the front of the truck, Buck said, “She…shouldn’t be alone. All the way out here.”
Jesus fucking Christ, Jack silently thought to himself, raising his eyes to Heaven. Does this man ever stop operating? Even for a second? Jack supposed not. He supposed Buck Walker had been looking out for himself for so goddamn long that he probably didn’t know any other way to live. Honestly, it was hard to look at the man and not see himself—and be disgusted by it.
“She’s not,” he growled. “She has me.”
Jack was as startled by his own words as Buck was, but he supposed it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Buck believed it, believed that Erin was now under the protection of a man who wouldn’t be swayed by Buck’s reputation and money.
Jack felt the familiar fire of being in charge—in control—light in his belly. It felt good to put Buck Walker in his place, to get back a little of what Jack had lost out there in the Badlands. Respect, fear, skill, manipulation. It was good to know he hadn’t completely lost so much of what made Jack Jack.
But he hated like hell to have to tell Buck about what had happened to Erin, but it had been a necessary evil. Neither Jack nor Erin could afford to have too many people asking too many questions. With a charge like conspiracy to commit rape hanging over his head, against his own daughter, no less, Buck Walker was going to keep his fucking mouth shut about Hank from now on.