Bumping along on the back of the horse, Grace had to resist the urge to throw her arms around Hank’s waist and try to squeeze out another laugh. She barely needed to hang on at all, since he took care to make the ride as smooth as possible.
Looking out for her…just like he used to.
Her heart gave a treacherous little skip. The boy she’d adored had been like a puppy: sweet and funny and so clueless sometimes she’d wanted to swat him with a newspaper. This man had gotten lost in the wilderness and been adopted by wolves—honed down, watchful, and likely to bite if cornered. But also gentle and protective. Some of the best of Hank was still there, peeking out around the edges to see if it was safe to show himself.
Even before Maddie, he had been permanently woven into the fabric of her life. To be close to him, Grace had volunteered to be the student manager for first the football team, then the basketball team, persuading her father the experience would look impressive on scholarship applications. She’d handed Hank water bottles at practice, taped his ankles before games, bandaged his scrapes, and strapped ice packs onto his bruises and sprains. Somewhere along the line, sports medicine had turned into her passion and was now her vocation.
Every time she joined the sideline celebration of a touchdown pass, she remembered how Hank would catch her up in his sweaty embrace and swing her off the ground. When her Bluegrass boys took a time-out with the game on the line, she recalled bumping fists for luck before Hank trotted back out onto the court.
Friends.
Did she dare get that close to him? Anger was so much safer than the slippery slope of forgiveness, then friendship, then…well she knew what. But for Maddie’s sake, she had to at least be civil—assuming Hank would want anything to do with his daughter. Or with Grace, when he found out what she’d done and asked the one question she couldn’t answer.
Why, Grace?
“There she is,” he said.
Grace started, then realized he was pointing at Tick, who grazed under a towering cottonwood on the river flat, brought up short by the temptation of green grass. When they found no sign of trauma to the horse, Grace climbed on, surprised when Hank pointed Ranger toward home. “Aren’t we going after the cows?”
He shook his head. “It’s getting late, and I’ve had enough thrills for one day.”
As they rode up to the barn, a semi rumbled into the driveway, JACOBS LIVESTOCK in block letters on the front of the shiny aluminum cattle trailer. Hank stepped off his horse and opened a wooden gate leading into an alley that ran toward the arena.
“Go ahead and unsaddle. Mabel and I can bring the cull cows up to the loading chute.”
“I’ll help…” Grace began, then huffed out a sigh. “Never mind. At the rate I’m going, it’ll be easier without me.”
“You weren’t so bad.”
“Sure. I just threw in a little trick riding for the fun of it.”
“It was pretty damn entertaining.” Hank’s eyes took on a hint of that once-familiar teasing gleam. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone hang upside down from the saddle horn. Look, Ma! No hands!”
She made a sour face. “Gee, I feel so much better now.”
“I thought you felt fine before.” The smile he lobbed at her was so unexpected, she had no chance to duck. “And since we’re being honest…I am really not sorry I let you show me the best time I’ve ever had, and I was lying my ass off when I said I didn’t want to do it again.”
Grace could only stare as he vaulted onto his horse and trotted away without a backward glance. All the times she’d imagined Hank saying those exact words, and now she had no idea what to do with them.
* * *
Well, that was brilliant. They’d just agreed to be friends, and he was already trying to screw it up by dragging sex into the mix. But he couldn’t let her go on believing whatever drunken bullshit he’d spewed that night at the Lone Steer, and even though it was pathetically little and years too late, he’d had to try to undo the damage. Grace deserved that much from him, no matter what she said about bygones.
Ten minutes later, he pushed the last few cows onto the truck Cole had backed up to the chute and rolled the segmented door down with a clatter.
“Good to go?” Cole asked.
“Yep.”
Cole double-checked that the door was fastened securely—a habit so ingrained Hank couldn’t take offense—then said, “Shawnee’s gonna ride along with me. Grace’ll take her pickup home, so she can drop you off on the way.”
Hank’s pulse jumped. He smacked it back down again. Uh-uh, buddy. There had already been enough alone time with Grace for one day.
“I’ll take Dad’s chore pickup instead. That front end is gonna fall apart if it doesn’t get some new U-joints.” He walked down the slanted loading chute, meeting Cole at the bottom. Mabel flopped on the ground, job done. Spider bounced off his thigh with both front feet, narrowly missing his crotch.
“Down!” he commanded for the fiftieth time that day.
She sat for about two seconds, then commenced her Tigger the Tiger routine. He’d gotten her to pause though, so that might count as progress. Shawnee came out of the house, Grace trailing along behind carrying the empty grocery bags. She’d washed her face and squashed her hair back into the ponytail. With the mud and smear of blood washed away, the scratch on her cheek was barely noticeable.
Cole zeroed right in on it, though. “What happened?”
“Wild hog spooked her horse,” Hank said.
Cole let loose an unaccustomed profanity. “They’ve been fightin’ ’em over in Oklahoma for a while. I suppose it was only a matter of time before the bastards worked their way on up the river. I’ll call Parks and Wildlife and spread the word so everybody can be on the lookout.” He turned to leave with a wave at Hank. “See you in the morning.”
Hank started to argue, but Cole and Shawnee were already climbing into their truck. Oh well. One more day wouldn’t kill him, then that was the end of it. Gil had him scheduled to leave Tuesday with a reefer full of frozen beef bound for Gulfport and come back to Amarillo on Friday loaded with fish. If Hank got turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving, it would be the special of the day at whatever truck stop he was camped at—and that was just fine with him.
“I’ve got a few things to do before I go,” he said, not quite looking at Grace.
“I’ll take care of the horses,” she offered.
“Thanks. Hay’s in the lean-to. Toss a whole bale in the feeder.”
Hank went around closing up the arena and alley. The wood-plank gate that led to the loading chute still sagged on its hinges, so heavy that even now he had to put his shoulder into it. As a kid, it had been impossible, which had invariably drawn a curse from his father when he had to drop what he was doing to stride over and yank the gate out of his son’s puny hands, muttering, “When I was your age…”
You were six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier. Instead of pointing out what he’d assumed was obvious, Hank had generally waited for the first opportunity to make himself scarce. Why hang around when the whole damn ranch was a series of tests that were rigged against him?
He rested his hands on the top of the gate, recalling in vivid detail the first time he’d opened it all by himself. He’d been so proud. Finally—
“Don’t just stand there,” his dad had barked. “Help me push these cows up.”
Hank kicked the gate. Stupid memories. And stupid him, still pouting over them. It wasn’t like his dad had purposely set him up. Johnny just never got around to fixing anything that could be half-assed to work for now.
The trouble was, his temporary fixes tended to become permanent. Melanie used to joke that if they ran out of baling twine and duct tape, they’d have to sell the place. There hadn’t been a single piece of equipment that didn’t have some glitch. Fuel gauges perpetually read Full, so if a distracted teenager forgot to top off the tank before heading out with the tractor, he might get to walk home, every step dogged by the certainty of the ass-chewing he was about to receive.
Door handles were broken, so getting out required rolling down the window and reaching around to the outside—assuming the window crank didn’t fall off in your hand. Windshield wipers scratched and streaked if they worked at all. And if that rattle in the front end was any indication, the chore pickup wasn’t going to limp along much farther.
As Hank chained the last gate, Grace came out of the barn. “I found the dog food and filled their bowls. They have beds in the tack room, so I assumed they stay in the barn?”
“Yeah, unless it gets real cold.” They stood awkwardly, each petting a dog to avoid making eye contact. “I’d better get going if I’m gonna get that pickup fixed tonight.”
She nodded. “I told Cole I’d follow you, in case it breaks down on the way.”
“I have to go to Dumas for parts.”
“No problem. That’s where I live. I’ve got an apartment in that complex by the junior high.”
Hank knew the place. Nothing fancy, but a big step up from a couple of bare rooms above a shop. Or a shitty old camper. He wondered what kind of pictures she’d hung on her walls. If she still had that same fleecy blue blanket on her couch for snuggling on cold nights, or if she’d burned it to kill the Hank cooties.
He spun away toward the chore pickup and said, “No, Mabel” as the dog made to follow. She wilted, then slunk back to the barn. Hank ignored the twinge of guilt. The dogs would be fine. Mabel was too territorial to stray from her designated turf, and Spider wouldn’t leave without her.
“Hank?” When he turned back, Grace hesitated, teeth pulling at her bottom lip. “In case nobody else bothers to say so, it’s good of you to pitch in. Most people wouldn’t under the circumstances.”
Heat rose in his face. “I didn’t have much choice.”
“Yeah, you did.” And she smiled at him.
Warmth trickled into his chest and pooled behind his sternum. He didn’t trust what he might say, so he settled for a jerky nod.
As promised, Grace stuck with him all the way to Dumas, even though the pickup felt like it would come apart if he tried to go over fifty miles an hour. When he turned right on the main drag, she went left with a beep of her horn and a wave.
He had to fight not to flip a U-turn and follow her.