Cassidy shifted in his saddle and used the tip of his finger to poke back a well-worn Stetson. He pursed his lips, managing a bland expression, but his black eyes sparkled with blatant amusement. “Looks like you’re a mite out of practice.”
Travis flipped a leg over his mount’s head and slipped to the ground. “Hell,” he muttered, eyeing his sloppy handiwork. “More’n a mite. I’m rustier than an old barn nail.” The unhappy steer rolled its eyes, snorting as if in agreement. Travis heaved a sigh, loosened the tied ankle and flipped off the front loop as the annoyed animal scrambled to its feet.
Travis gave it an affectionate slap on the rump, then the steer bolted across the pasture to join the impressive herd grazing as far as the eye could see. He turned away, recoiled his rope, tried to keep his eyes from wandering the vast spread that always sent a stab of envy into his heart. It wasn’t that Travis begrudged his friend’s success, he just wanted a little piece of it for himself.
To his mind, Cassidy Sloane had everything Travis had ever wanted in life—a loving family, a successful ranch, the respect of peers and neighbors. Folks considered Cassidy a hard worker, trustworthy and fair, with more than his share of good, old-fashioned common sense. Naturally, a man like Cassidy Sloane never would have been caught flat-footed by a twitchy cab thief.
And he would have known there was a damned gun in the bag.
Frustrated by the memory of this morning’s fiasco, Travis pivoted sharply and hung the coiled rope on his saddle. “Let’s cut another one.”
Cassidy issued a grunt, rolling the reins lightly in his gloved palm. “Think we’ve worried them enough for one day. Besides, I’m getting hungry. How about you?”
Disappointed, Travis gave a limp shrug. “I could eat.” He scuffed a pebble with his boot toe as he squinted at the grazing herd. And sighed.
“You’ve been out of the saddle for nearly three months,” Cassidy told him. “It’s going to take a while to work out the kinks.”
Travis swung back onto his mount and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I don’t have ‘a while.’”
“What’s the rush?”
“I’ll have to double up for the rest of the season to make up for what I’ve already missed.”
“How’n the devil are you going to do that, enter each event twice?”
It was the opening Travis had been waiting for. “That’s against the rules. But—” he reached into his back pocket, where a creased flyer was sandwiched between the folds of his wallet “—there’s no rule says you can’t enter twice as many events.” He plucked out the flyer, shook it open and held it out to Cassidy, who’d laid the reins against his big gelding’s neck, urging the animal forward.
“What’s this?”
“The latest schedule on the pro rodeo tour,” Travis said, slipping the wallet back into his pocket. “Look at the circled section.”
Cassidy scanned the sheet and shrugged. “So there’s a Cowboy Jamboree outside of Cheyenne next week.”
“Only a couple hundred miles from here. You’d be back Sunday night.” Avoiding his friend’s startled gaze, Travis made a production of plucking a fresh bag of pumpkin seeds out of his shirt pocket. “Unless you had a mind to head on up to Kalispell with me for the Pro Open later this month. Big purses up there. Top finishers all take a share.” He popped a couple of seeds in his mouth and held the bag out to Cassidy, who waved it away.
The big man crossed his forearms over the saddle horn, staring at Travis as if expecting him to sprout horns and moo. “Let me get this straight. You want me to rodeo with you?”
“Just for team roping.” Travis glanced away and tucked the cellophane bag back in his shirt. “Maybe steer wrestling.”
Cassidy’s eyes narrowed into black slits. “Do I look like a complete idiot?”
“Now that you mention it—” Travis caught the flyer Cassidy thrust at him, then jammed it back into his pocket. “Aw, c’mon, all I need is a hazer to run the steer straight. I’ll do the takedown. You won’t even get your boots dusty, and you’ll get thirty percent of the winnings. Fair enough?”
But Cassidy’s big gelding was already cresting the hill, heading back toward the ranch house.
Travis turned, urging his horse into a trot. “Okay, you win,” he muttered, easing alongside Cassidy’s mount. “Forty percent. Damned generous considering you’ve never ridden the circuit in your life.”
“I plan to keep it that way.”
“Hell, Sloane, you love the rodeo.”
“I love fried chicken, too, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to roll myself in flour and jump in a pan.” He ducked under an oak branch, angling a glance toward his glum companion. “What’s this all about, anyway?”
Travis feigned a nonchalant shrug and focused on a twisted hunk of barbed wire in a mended section of fence they were passing. He’d been too embarrassed to tell Cassidy about this morning’s robbery and how he’d left his sister’s cab wrapped around an oak tree. He hadn’t mentioned Peggy and the twins, either. Real men didn’t talk about things like emotions and relationships and how a pair of flashing green eyes could turn masculine innards into a quivering heap of jelly.
Nope, real men talked about real-man stuff, like the high price of cattle feed and what brand of pickup truck was tough enough to handle a real man’s work.
“Travis?”
“Hmm?”
“I said, what’s this all about?”
Travis snagged a twig off a low-hanging branch, guided his horse around another one, then cut toward the barren rise that led to the Sloane house. “Just looking for a little extra action. After what you said at the saloon a few weeks back, I figured you’d like a piece of it, that’s all.”
Cassidy angled a wary glance over his shoulder. “What exactly did I say?”
“Nothing much.” Tossing the twig away, Travis pulled off his right glove with his teeth, tucked it in his vest, then repeated the process with the left glove while Cassidy glowered impatiently. “Only that you’d married too young and wished you’d had a chance to hit the circuit for a few years before settling down.”
Cassidy dragged his hat down and slouched forward in the saddle. “I was drunk.”
“On two beers?”
“Whatever I said, forget it. I got a ranch to run, a family to feed.”
Travis swallowed resentment at the reminder. “How’s Victoria doing? You know, after her little cave adventure.”
“She’s fine.”
The terse reply was issued tightly, with a twitch at the jawline that gave Travis pause. “Must have been scared, though, poor little squirt. Tough thing to have happened.”
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Cassidy snapped. “It wouldn’t have happened if her mother had been watching her proper.”
“Karen?” Travis frowned, scratched his head. “I heard she was working the ER that day. All the town doctors were called in on account of the storm and all.”
“Yeah, doctors were called in. Mothers stayed at home with their kids. Guess it depends on priorities.” He shook his head as he muttered under his breath. “Never marry a smart woman, Travis. Nothing’s ever good enough for her.”
“Whoa, partner, this is Karen you’re talking about. Sure, she’s a doctor, but she’s also the mother of your child, your wife and the woman you love.”
Cassidy shifted the reins in his hand, gazing down the hill toward the sprawling, structured center of the Lazy S ranch. The tightness in his jaw eased, and an indefinable sadness crawled into his dark eyes. “Love sucks you in,” he said quietly. “You think everything will be wonderful when you put the ring on her finger, but that’s when she starts to change.”
Before Travis could even begin to digest the significance of that statement or the sadness behind it, Cassidy clicked his tongue, spurred his mount and shot down the grassy slope toward the house. Travis reined his horse, holding the impatient animal at the crest of the hill so he could watch the scene unfolding below.
>
A pigtailed girl zipped out of the house and dashed across the yard to greet her father. Cassidy dismounted, caught the excited child and swung her in the air. A woman stepped onto the porch, hovering there as if blessing the sight of loving family unity.
And it was one heck of a sight. Even from Travis’s vantage point high on the hill, the scene could have been pulled straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. He wondered if little Victoria knew how lucky she was, growing up with a dad who loved her. T.J. and Ginny would never know what that was like, not as long as Peggy believed that good-for-nothing ex-husband of hers was going to suddenly grow a heart and decide to be a real father to those babies. That flat-out wasn’t going to happen. A man who’d walk out on a woman like Peggy couldn’t be trusted any further than a Brahman bull could be flung from a slingshot.
Peggy deserved a real man to love and care for her. The twins deserved a real father.
In his mind’s eye, Travis imagined himself in Cassidy’s place, riding in from his own range to his own beautiful home, with a pair of exuberant, red-haired youngsters dashing out to greet him. Hell, he could even picture Peggy posed on the porch holding strawberry-rhubarb pie, the kind with sugary sparkles all over the crust. It was paradise.
A fool’s paradise.
Because what you saw wasn’t necessarily what you got. There was trouble in the Sloane household, an invisible river of darkness flowing beneath the surface calm.
Never marry a smart woman, Travis. Nothing’s ever good enough for her.
Those words made Travis’s blood run cold. Peggy Saxon was a smart woman. Even if she wasn’t the genius Sue Anne thought her to be, she was still too good for a broken-down cowboy who’d never amounted to a hill of beans in his entire life, and probably never would. Travis had wanted to be like Cassidy Sloane, a man who’d made something out of himself, who had something to offer. If a guy like Cassidy couldn’t make marriage work, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance for Travis, and he was six kinds of a fool for even thinking about it.
Trouble was, he couldn’t help but think about it, and when he did, his heart felt like it had been tied with barbed wire. Luckily, Travis knew how to deal with the pain, the sense of loss. He’d been doing it all his life.
* * *
By sundown, Travis was back in his pickup truck, speeding toward Cheyenne. In a few days, a week at most, Peggy Saxon would be nothing more than a sweet memory. A few laughs, a few beers, then on to the next town, the next livestock draw, the next roaring crowd. It wasn’t all Travis wanted, but it was all he could have.
It was the cowboy way.
* * *
The heat was stifling. Even the darkness couldn’t soften the oppressive layer of choking humidity that made Peggy’s hair stick to her wet face, cling to her nape like soggy cotton. It drove her crazy. The heat drove her crazy.
The silence drove her crazy.
She adjusted the nursery fan, then touched Ginny’s soft cheek. It was warm, but not sweaty; neither was T.J.’s. Both babies were sleeping peacefully. They hadn’t noticed that the room was spinning.
Fighting another nauseous surge, Peggy felt her way along the wall, stumbled to the living room and clung to the sofa, swaying.
Travis.
The voice in her mind was hoarse, desperate. She knew he wouldn’t answer, couldn’t answer.
Peggy knew he was gone.
Thirsty. God, she was so thirsty. She hadn’t been able to keep anything down all day, not even water. But her mouth was so dry that her tongue felt like suede. It stuck to her teeth like Velcro.
Peggy gripped the sofa cushion, closed her eyes, hoping to orient herself. The vertigo eased slightly, giving her a modicum of hope that she could make it to the kitchen. She was so damned thirsty.
The kitchen light was on, so she focused on the doorway, which resembled a brightly lit tunnel that was happy, cheerful and inviting. She tottered forward one step, then another. The tunnel tilted.
Peggy knew she was falling. She cried out first in fear, then in pain as something exploded inside her head.
Travis!
It was her final thought before the tunnel completely disappeared and she floated into a netherworld of blackness.
Chapter Eleven
Travis Stockwell slouched over the counter and fiddled with a limp French fry, using it to draw designs in the ketchup that flooded one side of his plate. He remembered that Peggy didn’t like ketchup on her French fries. She ate the danged things dry. A man just couldn’t have serious feelings about a woman who didn’t know how to eat French fries.
Worst part was that she’d probably raise those babies to eat French fries wrong, too. That’d be a real shame, especially for T.J. The little wrangler needed someone to teach him real-man stuff, like how to whack the ketchup bottle with a flat palm instead of a fist so the contents wouldn’t glug out all at once. And then there was the fine art of chomping down a burger in four bites or less. None of this nibbling around the edge stuff. Girls nibbled. Men gobbled. Belching was optional.
It wasn’t that Peggy wouldn’t be a good mother to those babies. She was a wonderful mama. The best. Patient and tender, all cooey and kissy. And the bravest woman he’d ever met. Peggy had given birth to twins in the back of his taxi during one of the worst storms Colorado had ever experienced, and she never complained once. Travis didn’t have a doubt in the world that those sweet babies would be well-loved and happy. It’s just that there were girl manners and boy manners, and Travis hated the idea that T.J. would grow up not knowing the difference.
Travis pushed away his plate, eyeing his own half-eaten burger with disdain. It looked, well, it looked nibbled. Pitiful, just pitiful. Ordinarily he was a three-bite-man and proud of it. Tonight his stomach wasn’t up to the challenge.
Maybe it was the peculiar sense of apprehension that had been plaguing him. He’d had trouble concentrating, had even missed a turnoff and found himself heading toward Nebraska. It had taken an extra hour to backtrack. Now he’d be lucky if he made it to Cheyenne by morning.
Travis took a final gulp of cold coffee, then tossed a two-buck tip on the counter and went to the diner’s cash register to pay his bill. The cashier greeted him with a lukewarm smile, waiting while he eyed the array of gum and mints displayed in the glass counter case.
“Got any pumpkin seeds?” he asked, handing over a twenty.
She accepted the currency and gave the display a disinterested glance. “We’ve got sunflower seeds.”
“I don’t want sunflower seeds.”
“We’ve got gum.”
“I don’t want gum. I want pumpkin seeds.”
She plopped his change on the counter. “Well, cowboy, you can’t have ’em if we don’t got ‘em. How about a breath mint?”
He narrowed his eyes. “How about some antacids?” he said loudly enough to startle some patrons that had just entered the establishment. “I could use ’em about now.”
The patrons did a U-turn and left.
Travis barely noticed, nor did he pay attention to the infuriated cashier’s dark scowl. He was completely overwhelmed by a soft buzz in his skull and the chill skittering down his spine. He shifted, glanced over his shoulder, saw nothing but his own reflection in the diner’s glass door.
Then he felt it again, a whispered uneasiness, unfocused but intensely compelling. His shoulder tingled as if touched. And he could have sworn he heard someone call his name.
* * *
“Why did you leave me, Daddy?”
“I had to.”
“Didn’t you love me anymore?”
“I loved you.”
“Then why did you go away?”
“I thought you’d be better off.”
His face was blurred, features obscured by a cloudy vapor. But Peggy could hear his voice and knew without doubt who he was. “But I cried, Daddy, and so did Mommy. We were so sad without you.”
“I know.” The vapor grew thicker, more opaque. “I’m sorry. I�
�m so sorry….”
“Daddy?” As Peggy reached out, empty mist swirled around her fingers. “Daddy, please come back. I’ll be a good girl, I promise. I promise, Daddy.”
A wail emanated from beyond the cloudy wall, a cranky, frightened sound that pierced her very soul. She clawed forward, only to find herself lost in the mist. The cry intensified, more desperate now, more terrified. She had to find the source. She had to.
She had to.
* * *
Travis pulled up to the curb, letting his truck idle a moment before turning off the ignition. He didn’t have a clue why he was here, or what he was going to do. All he knew is that he’d left the diner heading south, back toward Grand Springs. Now he was parked in front of Peggy’s duplex, wondering why the kitchen light was on at three o’clock in the morning.
At the risk of once again finding himself staring down the business end of a police revolver, he exited the truck and went to have a look-see. Of course, the twins couldn’t tell time, and he knew their hungry little bellies didn’t much care if the sun was up or not. Still, he couldn’t shake the sensation that he really ought to check things out.
He considered peeking in the back window, a notion quickly discarded when he remembered how frightened Peggy had been the last time he’d slunk around her house like some kind of perverted peeper. Instead, he strode up the front walk. By the time he reached the porch, he could hear the twins crying. He listened a moment, waiting for the change in pitch or intensity that confirmed they were being tended. The cries continued unabated, desperate, choking little wails that went straight through his heart.
“Peggy?” He tapped on the door, waited, then pounded it with his fist. “Peggy, it’s Travis. Open the door.”
Nothing. No lilting voice, no flurry of footsteps. Only silence.
A quick twist of the knob confirmed that the door was locked, so he sprinted around back, rushed through the gate and found the kitchen door locked, too. In a sickening rush of déjà vu, he took a step back, booted it open and dashed inside.
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