It was gonna get ugly before the night was over. Forty-five minutes before the scheduled start of the Saturday night performance, Joe sat in the front of the truck he was once again using as a bedroom and watched a line of churning black clouds bear down on the rodeo grounds.
As an Oregon boy, he had no idea what a tornado cloud looked like, but Cole had shrugged off his concern. “The energy patterns in this system are not conducive to the development of severe weather or tornados,” he said, a perfect, monotone imitation of the guy on the weather alert radio station. “But I will continue to monitor conditions closely.”
There went Joe’s last hope for getting plucked off the face of the earth and away from his hammering thoughts. He’d intended to drown them when he left the ranch on Monday, but he didn’t even finish the first beer at a bar in Amarillo before the presence of other human beings drove him back out into the sunlight. He’d blown a few bucks on cheap camping gear, spent a whole day hiking the Palo Duro Canyon, and slept in a tent deep in its heart, but he still felt Violet’s absence clear down to his bones. No matter how far or how fast he hiked, he couldn’t leave the ache behind.
The second day, he drove around until he found the back road to Hank’s ranch. He left Cole’s pickup in the same spot Violet had parked the night of their date, followed the ancient trail clear down to the river bottom, and wandered for miles through the river breaks. At dusk, he made his way back to pitch his tent in the place she called the Notch. Fuck it. If he insisted on torturing himself with memories of how good she felt and smelled and tasted, he might as well do it right.
He had come away determined to at least salvage some pride. He’d show them all he didn’t give a damn. Everyone knew he wasn’t built for her kind of life. Home. Kids. Neck deep in family. She’d done them both a favor by saying no when he asked to see her again. At least he’d made sure she knew Wyatt was in charge of his schedule. Couldn’t have her thinking she was the reason Joe had suddenly developed a fondness for the Lone Star state.
He stared at the boiling clouds, hands clenched on the truck’s steering wheel. Within forty-eight hours, he would be in Oregon. The time for avoidance was long gone. He took a long, steadying breath, then picked up his phone and pushed the Send button. As he waited for it to ring, the breeze freshened, whistling around the truck cab.
On the other end of the line, the receiver was snatched out of the cradle with a clatter. “Browning,” the voice growled.
“Dick. It’s Joe.”
There was a beat of silence, then, “You home?”
“No. Flying back tomorrow.” Joe fought the urge to clear his throat. That would be a sign of weakness. “We need to talk about next year’s schedule.”
Another couple of beats. Then, “Come out for lunch Tuesday.”
“Okay. See you then.” Joe clicked off, petty enough to be sure he hung up first.
Then he stared out the window, his gut tumbling and churning like the clouds. He’d expected to feel better once he talked to Dick. Now he wondered why. Had he expected an apology? A speech about how much they’d missed him and thank God he was coming back? Not unless the old bastard had had a lobotomy since he left. Or a heart transplant.
Joe tossed his phone into the sleeper and hopped down out of the truck. Tonight there was a rodeo to put on. A few blessed hours when he wouldn’t have time to brood. A violent gust scooped up fistfuls of dirt and flung it at him. He ducked his head to avoid a face full of grit and bowled into Violet as she strode out from between two parked pickups.
“Sorry.” He tried not to care that she immediately put space between them.
“Gonna be messy,” she said as they moved on down the road, parallel but not together. She shot a quick glance at Joe’s hooded sweatshirt. “Mom’s got extra slickers in the office if you need one.”
“I do. Thanks.”
And that was it. Nothing more to say. Hadn’t been since that excruciating moment when he’d scraped up every ounce of his guts and laid them out there, asked if he could see her again, and she’d turned him down flat. Her quiet rejection had sliced deeper than the public humiliation. She wasn’t tired or cranky or frustrated beyond measure and lashing out at the first available target. In the hushed solitude of the empty homestead, there had been only him, and even though he’d seen the regret in her eyes, Violet was smart enough to recognize a bad investment.
They hadn’t really spoken again except for a few awkward moments on Thursday morning when Violet brought him a bulky envelope from Wyatt. Joe had started to rip it open, then remembered it wasn’t anything he wanted Violet to see. He’d stood there holding it, looking guilty as hell. She probably assumed the DVD was porn instead of a copy of the movie Temple Grandin, the goddess of livestock handling—who was also autistic and, in some ways, very much like Cole. Before he left, he’d find time to slip that package into Cole’s pickup—where it wouldn’t be found until Joe was long gone.
The first fat drops of rain smacked him in the face as they rounded the corner of the office and jogged up the steps. Violet slammed on the brakes and Joe had to grab an arm to keep from knocking her flat. She stumbled, caught her balance, and pulled free. When she stepped aside, Joe saw Delon kicked back in a folding chair, arms crossed, feet propped on the table. Black hat, black shirt with white sponsor logos stitched down the arms and over the breast pocket, sleeves rolled to the elbow, looking like he’d stepped straight out of one of the ads he did for a Western wear company—which, no doubt, ended up taped inside high school girls’ lockers.
“When did you take over as the secretary?” Violet asked, easing farther away from Joe.
“The judges are having trouble with the electronic timer for the barrel racing. I’m holding down the fort while your mom helps them set it up.”
Despite his posture, Delon didn’t look the least bit relaxed. He didn’t look at Joe at all. Another gust of wind shook the building, peppering the windows with gravel.
“Where’s Beni?” Violet asked.
“With my dad, over in your mom’s trailer.”
More drops splatted against the windows like miniature water balloons. Violet grabbed a yellow rain slicker from the pile in the corner and shrugged into the stiff, rubberized canvas. The long tails hung past her knees, split in the back for riding. She scraped up pieces of hair the wind had pried loose and jammed them back in her ponytail, then pulled a beat-up straw hat down tight. Her mud hat. Joe wished he had his along. If the rain kept up through the bull riding, his good one would be ruined, and he refused to wear a plastic rain cover that looked like an old lady’s shower cap.
Violet started for the door, the slicker swishing around her legs as the rain thickened to a steady rumble on the tin roof. “I have to go saddle up.”
She spoke to the air somewhere between Joe and Delon, not looking at either of them. A week earlier, Joe would have offered to help her. Now he just nodded.
“I drew Pepper Belly,” Delon said. “How does she buck in the mud?”
“Not worth a crap.”
Violet dove out into the storm, leaving Joe and Delon alone. Great. As if to punctuate his discomfort, the sky opened up, and a solid sheet of water poured down. Joe would be tossing his leather cleats in the trash after this one. He dug a slicker out of the pile and pulled it on, his nostrils twitching at its musty scent. Delon stared down at his hands, thumb tracing the ridge of calluses at the base of the fingers of his riding hand, built up from years of being wedged into a bareback rigging. A muscle worked in his jaw like there were a whole lot of words jammed in his craw that he was trying not to say.
Join the club, buddy.
Best if Joe got the hell out of there before either one of them popped off. He got one foot out the door before his temper got the better of his good sense. He spun around to face Delon. “What exactly is your problem with me?”
Delon’s black eyebrows drew into a sharp vee. “Who says I have one?”
“Anyone with a pair of eyeballs.” Joe shoved his hands into the pockets of the raincoat and found a couple of stray coins and what felt like a dirt-crusted Lifesaver, gifts from the previous owner. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m out of here tomorrow, so you can move back into the spare room and keep your pieces of ass on the side. Sweet deal all around…except maybe for Violet.”
Delon’s feet dropped to the floor with a thud, every overdeveloped muscle in his body clenching. Anybody else might have come across the table. Delon only stared Joe down. “You think you’re what she needs? What Beni needs?”
Scorn dripped from the words and stung like acid. The truth always did, and everybody in the room knew Joe Cassidy was the last guy any woman needed in her life full time, let alone a mother or her son.
Iris scurried in, shaking off the rain like a chubby cocker spaniel, her gaze flicking from Joe to Delon. “Well, this is going to be fun,” she said, her smile a touch too bright.
“Good times,” Joe agreed, and splashed down the steps and into an ankle-deep puddle, the water oozing through the seams in his boots and soaking his jeans nearly to the knees. He cursed, then plowed straight through the next puddle on purpose. One way or the other, he was gonna be soaked before the night was done. A couple of hours and it would be over.
All of it. When the rodeo was over, he’d pack up his gear, hunker down alone in the semi, and first thing tomorrow morning he’d be on his way to DFW Airport with Cole. By afternoon, he’d be setting foot on Oregon soil—the moment he’d been dreaming of since his flight took off from Sea-Tac.
So why did he feel more like punching something than dancing in the rain?