The house was cold and dark when Johnny Brookman walked in and tossed the two-pound bag of sliced brisket on the kitchen table. He really ought to invest in a timer to turn on the lights and heat in the evening, since his occasional, feeble attempts at a love life weren’t likely to produce a wife. Hard to imagine, but he was even worse at dating than he’d been as a husband—and a father.
A man was supposed to be past this crap by his mid-fifties, settled into a boring routine of falling asleep with the television on except for a couple nights a month when he or his wife didn’t doze off before they got around to having sex. Sharing his house with someone who could hold up their end of the conversation, unlike the dogs—one almost entirely white, one black—who gazed at him expectantly from the traditional black border collie masks, hoping for a belly rub and some of whatever smelled so good.
“Dream on,” he said as much to himself as them.
Dreams. He’d had those once, before the wildfire that had wiped out the whole ranch and his rodeo career in one big whoosh of flames. Over two decades later, he could still taste the ashes.
By now he was supposed to be one of those former champs the camera picked out of the crowd every night at the National Finals, distinguished and proud alongside his lovely wife as he watched horses he’d trained carry the latest generation of elite ropers to championships of their own. Top cowboys would pop in when they were passing through from one rodeo to the next, eager for a dose of his expertise. I’ve been hanging out at Johnny Brookman’s place, they’d say, dropping his name as proof they’d been admitted to rodeo’s inner circle.
He glanced around the barren kitchen. Yeah, this was an exclusive club, all right. A circle of one, unless you counted the dogs. The ghost of a thousand regrets jabbed icy fingers into Johnny’s gut, wearing his son’s barely recognizable face.
Where’s he been? Is he planning to stick around? How come he’s not fighting bulls anymore?
A father should know the answers to those questions.
A quiet beep caught his attention. The light was flashing on the answering machine attached to his landline. He jabbed the button, and his daughter’s voice echoed from the tinny speaker.
“Hey, Daddy. I tried your cell, but you must’ve forgot to charge it again.”
Johnny pulled the phone out of his pocket. Yep. Dead as a doornail. He plugged it into the charger while she went on.
“I just wanted to let you know I heard Hank is in town. He might come by to pick up some of the stuff he left at the ranch.” Melanie paused, adjusting her tone to somewhere between a plea and an order, with a hint of resignation. “Try not to fight with him. He’s not… Well, it’s a long story, but go easy on him, okay? And call me when you get this.”
He pressed fingertips against his eyelids as the recording clicked off. Hell. It was a moot point. Considering his reaction the last time Hank had shown up, why would the boy come anywhere near him?
Johnny was the first to admit he’d never been good with kids. Too impatient. Too cranky. With Melanie it hadn’t mattered. Even as a toddler, she’d had a way of making up for what he’d lacked. Little wonder she was an ace at marketing.
Nothing had been easy with Hank. He’d been a fussy, colicky baby who’d been shuffled from babysitter to day care to trailing along after his sister while his parents were too busy bickering to raise him themselves. Johnny couldn’t take any credit for what Melanie had made of herself…but he deserved at least half of the blame for whatever Hank had become.
And he didn’t have time to mope about it now.
He shucked his town coat and pulled on a heavier chore coat, gloves, and a grimy wool cap with earflaps and laces above the brim before heading outside. This bitter wind was no good for riding a colt—it put a hump in their backs and white in their eyes—but he’d left the mare he called Ruby saddled while he ran into town. He’d intended to ride out through the cows this evening, but there were never enough hours of daylight, especially this time of year. If he worked her in the round corral tonight, though, she’d be ready to get some work done in the morning…and it was better than sitting alone in this damn house.
Ruby quivered, nostrils flaring, as he untied the halter rope. Damn weather—it made every four-legged creature on the ranch stupid. The colt spooked and nearly jumped on top of him when the white dog bounded out of the stall behind her. Spider was almost a year old and still not good for much but interfering with Mabel, proving his old man’s assertion that two dogs were worse than none at all.
“You go lay down,” he ordered the dogs.
Their heads drooped, and they cowered as if he’d kicked them.
“Go!” he repeated, pointing at the tack room.
Mabel gave him one last pleading glance before slinking away. Spider followed, but Mabel growled and snapped at the pup when she plopped down too close. Johnny just shook his head and slid a bridle onto his horse.
At the gate to the round pen, he flipped a switch to turn on the single mercury-vapor light overhead, then grabbed the long lunge line from where it hung on a post. He attached it to the near side ring on Ruby’s snaffle bit, stepped back, and gave a cluck of his tongue and a flick of the line. She danced a few steps sideways. He clucked and flicked again, and she began to circle the forty-foot diameter pen, her strides longer and smoother as she went, her breath coming in puffs of silvery steam.
No more colts, he’d promised Melanie when she’d pitched a fit about the last one. It was too dangerous, she insisted, out here all alone. He’d argued that he could as easily get in a wreck on one of the older horses, but listing all the things that could go wrong out in the pasture hadn’t exactly made her feel better, so he’d just promised to be careful.
When he judged that Ruby had worked the kinks out, he unclipped the lunge line and checked the cinches again before climbing aboard. At his gentle kick, she moved right out, and he consciously relaxed into the saddle, drawing a deep breath. The air was dense from the earlier rain, concentrating the scent of cow manure, horse sweat, and hay from the nearby shed.
Johnny lapsed into autopilot as he recalled Hank’s gaunt face. He’d always seemed young for his age. Now he looked every one of his…geezus, what was it? Twenty-four, twenty-five years? Another of those things a father should know, along with whatever had sucked the sparkle out of Hank’s eyes and left him looking so—
Something white flashed in Johnny’s peripheral vision. He barely registered that it was Spider, popping up from under the fence, before the mare spooked, whirled, and came undone. The first leap jacked his butt out of the saddle and slammed him into the swells. He clutched at the reins, trying to yank her head up, but the second lunge blew his right foot out of the stirrup. Then she whirled again, slinging him off the side and into the fence.
There was a sickening crunch as Johnny’s head and shoulder slammed into the heavy boards. Then everything went dark.
* * *
A loud banging woke Hank from a dead sleep. He sat bolt upright, clutching the blanket to his chest to ward off the cold, then remembered he was in an actual bedroom, not that ratty old camper.
The banging sounded again, followed by someone yelling his name. He squinted at the digital alarm clock he hadn’t bothered to set since he had nowhere to be at—for Christ’s sake, seven fifteen?—on a Sunday. With a groan, he swung his feet to the floor and fumbled for his jeans, then a light switch.
“What the f—” He dodged a fist that nearly connected with his face instead of the door he’d yanked open.
“Oops.” His visitor flashed a wide grin that sent Hank spiraling back to playing in mud puddles out behind the Smoke Shack—and getting their butts paddled for tracking the mess inside. “I should punch you, asshole. Take off and disappear without even a damn text now and then?” Korby looked him up and down, taking in Hank’s tangled hair, bare feet and chest. “Geezus. No wonder my mother acted like she’d seen Wolf Boy.”
“I went native for a while.” Hank folded his arms over nipples that were puckering from the draft. Outside, the security lights cast long shadows in the predawn gloom.
“I guess you’ve got it in you. What is it, Osage blood on your Mom’s side?” Korby didn’t wait for an answer, rubbing a hand over his own formerly shaggy head. “I had to clean up my act.”
“Tryin’ to be a role model for the kiddies?”
“And keep Principal Dornbacher off my ass…still.” He slapped Hank on the chest as he shouldered into the apartment. “It’s good to see you, even if you did get even uglier.”
Hank pushed the door shut and leaned his forehead against it, unable to process this much cheerfulness. “Is there some reason you’re here before the butt crack of dawn?”
“Oh, right.” Korby’s grin faded. “Ma sent me to tell you—your old man is in the hospital.”
Hank’s gut dropped straight through the floor.
* * *
Concussion. Fractured clavicle. Pins and a plate.
Between himself, his fellow bullfighters, and the bull riders, Hank had seen enough injuries to know basic medical terminology. Johnny had smacked his head and broken his collarbone bad enough to need surgery to put it back together. Hank’s pulse bumped again at the idea of his father laid out cold in the dirt with not a soul around. Thank God he’d come to and been able to crawl to the house and call for help.
“It was damn near dark when I saw him at the Smoke Shack,” he called to Korby from the bathroom. “What was he doing out there?”
“According to the neighbor, he asked himself the same thing all the way to the emergency room.” Korby lounged on the couch, sipping coffee and flipping through one of Hank’s stash of used paperbacks, no doubt looking for the “good” parts. He tossed the book aside as Hank walked out of the bedroom. “Are we going to the hospital?”
Hank stopped in the middle of pulling on a boot. Hell. What was he gonna do? His reflex had been to rush somewhere, but it wasn’t like Johnny was on death’s door, and Hank’s presence wasn’t likely to be a comfort.
He started at a series of booming thuds. Hank opened the door again and looked up—way up—at Cole Jacobs, filling the entire landing in a bulky chore coat and wool cap.
He gave Korby a glance, then looked back at Hank. “I guess you heard about your dad already. Shawnee said I should grab you and go on out to the ranch to see what needs to be done.”
Hank blinked. “How would I know?”
“You’ve only been off the place for three years. Can’t have changed much.”
The ranch? Or Hank?
Korby unfolded from the couch. “I’ll come along and—”
“No,” Cole said.
“But—”
Cole gave him a withering stare. “No.”
Hank stifled a grin. Looked like married life hadn’t changed Cole much either.
Hank reached for his coat. “I’ll catch up with you later, Korb.”
He was climbing into Cole’s pickup before it occurred to him that he also could have said no—but that wasn’t how it worked in ranch country, or on the rodeo circuit. If someone got knocked down, people stepped in and gave them a hand up. It wasn’t about friendship, or loyalty, or family. Or at least not just those things.
At the base of what people liked to call the cowboy code, it was about survival. No one could go it alone, and anyone who chose this life knew their day would come.
As they rolled out of town and onto the highway that stretched east, straight and flat as the landscape, Cole gave him an update. Johnny’s concussion was mild, the break in his collarbone was clean, and he was going into surgery any minute. Steve and Iris Jacobs were with him, and if all went well, he would be released to go home with them that evening.
“What about Melanie?” Hank asked, trying to sound like he didn’t care whether his sister was rushing home.
Cole shook his head. “They’re in the middle of tryin’ to get approved as foster parents. It came up kinda sudden. Some guy who works for Wyatt has a younger brother and sister who just got taken away from their mother.”
So Melanie was getting an instant family. She wouldn’t even notice she was missing a brother. Hank turned his face away to look out the window, aware that it was stupid to feel slighted. How could he slap his sister away, over and over, then piss and moan when she finally went?
Or maybe he was jealous because she’d chosen these kids. She hadn’t got stuck with them like she had Hank. He was the one everybody got stuck with: his parents, his sister, the whole Jacobs clan. Only Bing had picked him.
And before her…Grace.
Cole glanced over, taking in Hank’s lightweight jacket and bare head. “You gonna be warm enough?”
“I’ve got stuff at the house.” On the sunny May morning that wasn’t supposed to be his last on the ranch, Hank had only packed what he’d needed for the summer. Now he could load up the rest without having to get past his dad.
“Where’s Shawnee?” he asked.
“Picking up groceries. She’s not expecting to find much food in the house.”
Hank frowned. “How long do you figure we’re gonna be out there?”
“Dunno. The chores shouldn’t take long, but your dad was plannin’ to go looking for some strays this morning, out in the breaks.”
Great. That could mean anything from a couple of hours to days of searching every ravine and patch of brush along the Canadian River.
They drove in silence for a few more miles before Cole said, “This is weird. You’re supposed to do all the talking, and I’m supposed to just sit here.”
“I thought you’d like the change.”
“Me too.” Cole’s forehead knitted as if it pained him to admit, “I sorta miss the babbling. Takes the pressure off me.”
“Sorry.”
There was a weighty pause, then Cole said again, “Me too.”
Well, shit. They weren’t just talking about the lack of conversation anymore. But Hank had come home to make amends, so he might as well get on with it. “You had no choice. I broke the law. And I forced the whole crew to lie to the cops to cover my ass.”
Cole frowned. “We had a meeting, and everyone agreed being fired was punishment enough under the circumstances. Even Tyrell.”
After he’d broken Hank’s jaw for messing with his daughter.
Mariah Swift—gorgeous, smart, irresistible—and at almost seventeen, two months shy of legal no matter how old she looked or acted. Hank had been toast the first time she smiled at him, and with his standard lack of judgment and self-control, he’d decided it didn’t count if all he did was kiss her.
The law didn’t see it that way. Neither did her father. If it hadn’t been for Cole and Shawnee and the others persuading the cops that it was nothing but a little family squabble among the Jacobs crew, Hank could have served a mandatory two-year sentence. Been required to register as a sexual offender everywhere he went for the rest of his life. The Texas statute made no exceptions for idiots who thought they were in love.
But his friends had. Hank hadn’t realized they’d all sat down, discussed the matter, and unanimously voted to protect him. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with that knowledge.
“That should have been the end of it,” Cole said.
It would have been, if Hank had kept his mouth shut. But no. He’d gone tearing off to Florida to spend the fall proving—all by himself, screw you very much—that he deserved to fight bulls at the best rodeos in the Southeastern Circuit. And he’d had the next year’s contracts nailed down when he’d seen, via goddamn Facebook, that Mariah had celebrated her all-important birthday with a new beau. She hadn’t been waiting for Hank, as he’d imagined. She’d never seen him as anything more than a summer fling.
He’d reacted badly—go figure—pouring his woes into an ear that wasn’t sympathetic or discreet. By the time the story circled back, it had been embellished to the point that his prospective employer had declared he wouldn’t let some pervert anywhere near his fourteen-year-old granddaughter and offered to escort Hank out of the state.
That’s when it had sunk in. It wasn’t the law, or Tyrell, or Cole, or even Mariah who was out of line. It was Hank. Reality had finally bitch-slapped him hard enough to get his attention…and send him reeling.
Too far the other direction, Bing insisted. Yes, he’d screwed up, but he wasn’t nearly as bad as he made himself out to be. Hank wasn’t so sure. He had, however, promised he wouldn’t waste time brooding, so he summed it all up by saying, “It was my own fault.”
Cole jerked a nod, staring straight ahead. Hank let out a long, silent breath. Lord love pickups, where two men could have a serious conversation with no risk of eye contact. Cole jabbed a button on the radio and filled the cab with the sound of the morning Texas ag report—cattle and grain markets, weather conditions, the usual feed-and-seed commercials.
Hank’s throat tightened. He’d hated this station when he was stuck riding along with his dad, fingers twitching to dial in some indie rock from Amarillo. The same reporters had been going through the same routine for so long, Hank would know those voices if he heard them on a crowded street in New York City.
This morning, they sounded like home.