Rough Creek

by Kaki Warner

  “I have to go to town.” She told him Alejandro should work the colt for no more than half an hour, then take Rosco out to check on the cattle in the east pasture. “Do the colt good to get out of the pen for a while.”

  Forty minutes later, Raney pulled up to the diner. Bertie was already there, sitting in a booth by the window, scrolling through her phone.

  Roberta Barton had been Raney’s best friend ever since their first 4-H meeting in the second grade. Through the years they’d done barrel racing together, flag parades, team roping, and spent the better part of their teenage years hanging around local horse shows and rodeos, dreaming of the day they’d be in the big arena.

  Those dreams came to an abrupt end for Bertie in her senior year when her horse stumbled and threw her headfirst into the arena wall. She recovered okay, although she never regained her fearless enthusiasm for riding. Her love of horses remained the same, though, so while Raney stepped into Daddy’s role at the ranch, Bertie went off to Texas A&M to earn a veterinary degree. After graduating, she left Rough Creek to work at a big clinic outside of Fort Worth. Now Raney saw her only once or twice a year, whenever Bertie came to town to visit her parents. It was still fun. But different.

  Raney studied her friend through the diner window. How many more times would they get together before they slowly drifted apart? It was already happening, Bertie heading in one direction, building a new life in Fort Worth, while Raney stayed planted in the same place she’d been her whole life.

  Bertie had a guy now. Marriage would be next, then kids. A few high school reunions, and those chatty, once-a-year newsletters inside a Christmas card, then even those would eventually stop. It was inevitable. Raney had seen it happen to Mama and to a lesser degree to her sisters—except for Joss, who collected and discarded people like shoe store coupons.

  She could already feel it happening to her and Bertie.

  But not today. Resolved, Raney grabbed her purse, opened the truck door, and hopped out. Today, she would enjoy her friend while she could. And maybe a piece of Mellie’s coconut cream pie.

  They picked up where they’d left off a week ago, when Bertie had first come into town to help her mother after her hip replacement. Mom was doing well, Bertie loved her job and her new apartment, Fort Worth was amazing, the clinic was awesome, and Phil was the perfect guy.

  Pretty much the same things she’d said last week.

  Raney mostly just listened. Her life hadn’t changed much since Bertie’s visit six months ago. And the visit before that. Except that now Mama was having a menopausal crisis and was about to run off to parts unknown, and Joss was pregnant and fixing to move back in to make Raney’s life miserable, and they were selling off most of their cattle so they could focus on breeding championship quarter horses, and—oh, yeah, and they had an ex-con working for them who’d accidentally killed a guy. Nothing Raney really wanted to talk about, so she just sat there and nodded and smiled. Which was fine with her.

  Until her cell phone chimed.

  Unknown caller, the screen read. She was about to press DECLINE when she saw it was a local number. Probably spam. But maybe not. She accepted and immediately said, “If this is a solicitation—”

  “Don’t hang up, Raney. It’s me.” Dalton Cardwell.

  Surprised, it took her a moment to respond. “How’d you get my cell number?” Not her friendliest greeting.

  “Hicks. I hope that’s okay. I wanted to tell you I’d be gone for a couple of days to help my folks move.”

  “Glenn already told me. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it last night.”

  “My folks didn’t reach me until after ten. Figured it was too late to call.”

  “Oh, well . . . thanks for telling me.” Twelve hours late.

  There was a pause. Raney was about to end the call when he said, “I also wanted to talk to you about last night. About what happened on the porch.”

  “I already apologized for that.” She was starting to lose patience.

  “What?”

  “I shouldn’t have dumped all that stuff about my father on you, Dalton. It was inappropriate. Old history, anyway.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I’m glad you told me.”

  “Glad? Why?”

  “It shows trust. That you were comfortable enough with me to talk about it. But that’s not what I was talking about.”

  “Then what?”

  “I wanted to apologize for what I did.”

  Realizing where this was headed, Raney decided to exact a little payback. For what, she wasn’t sure. “Refresh my memory. What did you do?”

  “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” She could picture him smiling as he said it. She heard it in his voice.

  It made her smile, too. “Say what?”

  This time he chuckled. Low and intimate and totally masculine. “Okay. I’ll say it. I shouldn’t have kissed you. It wasn’t a good idea.”

  Raney waited a beat to keep the laughter out of her own voice. “You kissed me? When?”

  They both laughed then, and she stopped being mad at him.

  “Can’t blame you for forgetting. It wasn’t that great of a first kiss.”

  “First? That implies there’ll be more. Didn’t you just say it wasn’t a good idea?”

  “I did. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a repeat.”

  “You’re dreaming again, cowboy.”

  “Am I? Maybe. Gotta go. Got a hundred years of crap to unload. See you Wednesday.”

  Still smiling, Raney ended the call, then looked up to see Bertie gaping at her. “What?”

  “Oh my God! Raney Whitcomb, you were flirting!”

  “No, I wasn’t.” Raney took her time putting her phone away, hoping the heat in her face would fade.

  “I’ve never seen you flirt!”

  “Not so loud. And I’ve flirted plenty of times.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, please.”

  “You called him Dalton. Who—” Bertie’s hazel eyes went even wider. “It was Beanpole, wasn’t it? Dalton whatshisname—Cardwell!”

  Raney looked around, grateful the place was empty except for the waitress, who was frowning in their direction. Suzanne—Suze—Anderson, a girl she remembered from her teen years, but from a different school. “You’re shouting again.”

  Bertie leaned forward and dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “Isn’t he the one who had that wreck that killed—”

  “Jim Bob Adkins. The commissioner’s nephew. It was an accident.” Raney was getting tired of talking about Jim Bob, his drinking problems, the wreck, whose fault it was. And Dalton Cardwell.

  Bertie wasn’t. “If it was an accident, why did they send him to jail?”

  “Because he confessed and waived a trial. If he hadn’t, he probably would have gotten off.” Seeing Suze heading over to take their orders, Raney opened her menu. “You know what you want yet?”

  They ordered their usual. Chicken salad, light on the mayo, avocado on the side, and iced tea. Raney thought the subject of Dalton Cardwell had been dropped, but as soon as Suze left, Bertie leaned forward again. “What about Karla?”

  “Who?” The name sounded familiar, but Raney didn’t know from where. Then she remembered the redhead she’d seen with Dalton a couple of times before he went to Huntsville. “Karla Jenkins? What about her?”

  “She and Cardwell were dating before . . .” Bertie glanced over to see Suze eyeing them again. “You know.”

  “They’re not now. She moved to Dallas. Or maybe Fort Worth. I don’t remember.”

  “I think they were pretty serious.”

  Raney was saved from responding when Suze came back with their iced tea.

  She thunked the glasses on the table, propped her fists on her hips, and said, “Karla Jenkins moved to Fort Worth
last Christmas. After she wrote Dalton a Dear John letter in prison. A pretty low-class thing to do, in my opinion.” She turned to Raney. “And you’re right. Dalton should have gotten off. Everybody knows Jim Bob was drunk and speeding. But Dalton took responsibility because that’s the kind of guy he is. Anything else you want to know? No? All right, then. Your orders will be up in a minute.”

  Raney and Bertie blinked after her as she stomped off to the kitchen. But they got the message, and for the rest of the meal they limited the conversation to Phil, Bertie, her job, her mother’s new hip, and Phil, Fort Worth’s most amazing vet.

  “You’d like him,” Bertie said later after they’d left the diner and were standing outside, going through the motions of a protracted good-bye. “Maybe next time I come visit my folks, I’ll bring him.”

  “I hope so. I’d like to meet him.” In truth, Raney didn’t care if she ever met Amazing Phil. He sounded pretty full of himself. Or maybe she was just upset because he was one of the main reasons she and Bertie were drifting apart.

  As she watched Bertie drive away, a sense of loss stole over Raney. She wondered why she couldn’t be more social, like Mama. Apparently, even an ex-con had more friends than she did.

  But it had always been that way.

  As a little kid, she’d hated being dressed up and paraded around—Mama and Daddy’s little darlings. So precious. So pretty. Even at an early age, the weight of her parents’ expectations and all that attention from people who didn’t even know her felt false. Consequently, she avoided it whenever she could. Which only generated another, more hurtful kind of attention. One messy or off day, and she might be whispered about for weeks. Eventually, she learned to go along to get along, but it still felt false.

  She’d never wanted to be in the rodeo court, or wear a homecoming crown, or kick up her heels as a cheerleader. Yet she did it to avoid the whispers, and because that was what was expected of the Whitcomb girls, who were pretty and rich and so special they even had a ranch named after them.

  Over time, she gained a lot of admirers, but few friends. And because she hung back whenever she could, she never learned how to be sociable. If it didn’t involve horses or the ranch, Raney didn’t have much to say.

  Except to Dalton Cardwell, it seemed.

  The ex-con.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Where have you been?” Mama asked when Raney came up the veranda steps after her brunch with Bertie.

  “In town.”

  “But you’re so dressed up.”

  “I’m not dressed up.” Raney wondered again if she’d turned into a complete slob without even knowing it.

  Mama gave an indulgent smile. “Whatever the reason, you look very nice.”

  She was sitting in one of the overstuffed chairs, nibbling on her usual tiny triangular-shaped cucumber sandwiches. Raney wondered if she was trying to make herself allergic so if she found herself stranded on some non-cucumber-producing island somewhere, she wouldn’t feel so deprived. Mama didn’t handle deprivation well. Hence the Jimmy Choo sandals and designer capris with Swarovski crystals on the pockets.

  Her mother waved a hand toward the plate on the ottoman. “Join me?”

  “I had an early lunch with Bertie.”

  “Oh, that’s why you’re so dressed up.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. I was trying to impress Bertie.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic, dear. It’s unbecoming.”

  “Then quit making it so easy.”

  Raney plopped into the chair facing her mother and crossed her ankles atop the ottoman. Even though it was barely midday, the sun was already baking everything it touched. If it was this hot in early May, by summer they’d be cooked.

  “How’s her mother?” Mama asked.

  “Well enough for Bertie to leave in a day or two.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Obviously, Mama had something on her mind. All these bland pleasantries came at a cost. But Raney didn’t pry, content to enjoy the silence while she could.

  After her mother finished her tiny sandwich, she brushed the crumbs off her lap and said, “I heard from Josslyn this morning. She’ll be here by the end of the week. Or next week, at the latest.”

  “To stay?” Raney tried to keep the panic from her voice. She and Joss were so different it was hard for them to live in close quarters without going at each other’s throats. Raney considered Joss irresponsible and undisciplined. Joss thought Raney was a rule-bound stick-in-the-mud. Right brain versus left brain. Life of the party versus fringe dweller. And now they would be adding a newborn to the mix.

  Instant chaos.

  “She wants to get everything ready for the baby,” her mother said.

  “So soon?”

  “She’s due in just a few months,” Mama reminded her.

  Maybe Joss would be late. She was late for everything else, why not a baby, too? Three or four months until the baby, then at least two more months before Joss would cut and run. Six months total, with Mama there only between trips to referee or run interference. Raney wondered how she’d get through it.

  “I thought we could turn the guest room into a nursery,” Mama suggested.

  “Downstairs? Will she want the baby that far away? Why not use Len’s or KD’s room?” Seemed impractical to make a permanent kid room when it was doubtful Joss would stay very long.

  Mama shook her head. “It’s superstitious, I know, but as long as your sisters’ bedrooms stay the same, I’m convinced they’ll come back. I want them to know they’ll always have a place here at the house.”

  “I think they already know that.”

  “It’s not the same, Raney. When you have children, you’ll understand.”

  And there it was. Another gentle reminder that Raney was still the odd one out, the unnatural daughter who was unmarried, childless, and happy about it.

  “I forgot to mention she just found out it’s a girl. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  And the family curse continues.

  * * *

  * * *

  Tuesday afternoon, Raney was in the round training pen with Rosco. She’d worked him on spin turns and roll backs, pivots and quick breaks, and keeping his head down. The colt was moving along really well, but Raney wasn’t sure how much more she should ask of him, so she walked him a few laps to cool him down, then dismounted by the gate. She had just pulled off the saddle when she looked over and saw Dalton, elbows on the top fence rail, watching them.

  Her concentration faltered. Rosco sensed it, whipped his head back, grabbed the saddle blanket with his teeth, and sailed it across the pen.

  Dalton laughed. Rosco snorted.

  Raney ignored them both. Not wanting the colt to think he could get away with that, she set down the saddle, led him over to the saddle blanket, picked it up, and put it on his back again. This time when he tried to whip his head around, she said, “Quit!” and elbowed him in the jaw. The second time, she punched him in the eye, not hard enough to cause damage but definitely enough to get his attention. He got the message. After putting the blanket on again with no incident, she decided to stop while she was ahead.

  Calling to Chuey in the barn, she handed off Rosco then walked over to where Dalton still leaned against the fence. “Thought you weren’t coming back until Wednesday,” she said, taking off her gloves and stuffing them into her back pocket.

  “Counting the hours, were you?”

  “I’d say you’re the anxious one, rushing back a half day early.”

  “You could be right.”

  Not sure what that meant, she switched subjects. “Your folks get moved in okay? Timmy likes his new place?”

  Dalton nodded and held open the gate for her. “He’s taken the change better than I expected. I’ll admit, I’m relieved.” He secured the gate, then fell in beside her as she walked toward the
house. “When did you start working with Rosco?”

  “When his new trainer ran off.”

  “Alejandro couldn’t take over for me?”

  “He had to pick up his kid. One of his ex-wives wants to go back to Honduras. He’s trying to convince her to leave his twelve-year-old son here in Texas. Alejandro numero Uno, I think.”

  “Who would take care of him while Alejandro works or goes with me to shows?”

  “There’s plenty of folks around here to look out for him if needed. Our people are like family. We all watch out for each other. Especially the kids.”

  When he didn’t respond, Raney looked over at him.

  He had a nice profile. High forehead, straight nose—not too long, not too short, with only a slight lump where his helmet had come off during the game against Gunther High—the newspaper made a big deal of it—and a jaw that could chisel stone. Like now, as he stared into the distance, dark brows drawn low over his beautiful green eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was squinting or fretting.

  “I don’t like you working Rosco,” he finally said.

  Fretting. “Why not?” She tried to keep her voice neutral. She didn’t like being questioned about how she worked her own horses. He might be the trainer, but she was the owner.

  “He can be pushy. Rowdy, even. Plus, he’s a stud. They can be unpredictable on their best days.”

  Raney was about to tell him she knew all about handling horses and didn’t need him telling her which ones she couldn’t or shouldn’t work, when he said, “I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.”

  “Thanks for the concern, but I can take care of myself. And my horses.”

  He looked down at her. Not angry. More like worried.

  “I know what I’m doing,” she assured him.

  “That was obvious when you didn’t let him fool around during a training session. But what if it had been your shoulder he’d grabbed?”

  “What if it had been yours?” she challenged back.

  “I would have put him on the ground. Can you do that?”

  Raney didn’t answer.