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Chapter One

“DON’T MAKEme hurt you, man.” Dalton Jakoby looked at Ben, shaking his head at his oldest buddy and possibly the dumbest bull rider in the history of rodeo—and no one ever said these guys were rocket scientists. “You keep landing on your head, eventually you’re going to have your brains leaking out of your ears.”

Ben nodded, then winced. “I don’t think I broke anything.”

“Good. I guess. You want a beer, man?” The arena was dark now, the local Wyoming cowboys gone home and a goodly amount of the ones left headed to the biker bar out on the highway.

The rest of them were fixin’ to break up into groups and do their things—poker, dancing, beer, shit. There was even a little projector with some Disney movie playing on the side of a trailer.

“Nah. We got any Cokes?”

“Dr Pepper?” Tony asked, the bullfighter appearing out of the gloom.

“Sounds good, man. You seen Dustin?”

“He was back in sports medicine. He’s on his way now. Lanny James is headed out to the ER.” Tony rolled his eyes, but Dalton saw the worry in the bullfighter’s face.

“Damn. That sucks. Someone call his momma?”

“Dustin did, yeah. He’s a good egg.”

“Yeah.” Dalton’s twin was totally the good one. It was crazy-making. Dustin was always the one to crack when Momma and Daddy put the pressure on them, not him.

Tony dug into a cooler to hand Ben a soda. “Beer, Dalton?”

“Please. I’m off the clock.” Off the clock until he had to meet with the newspaper lady for an interview at ten tomorrow morning.

“You and me both.” Tony winked at him, dark eyes dancing.

“Praise God for that.” If Ben was getting himself hurt on Friday night, that meant the weekend was going to be rough. He felt it on the air.

“Yessir.” Tony tossed over a beer, and they headed to the stack of chairs the guys had put out. Best part about being a Jakoby was that most of the time, someone had dealt with the little shit. Worst part was all the big shit left to handle, he reckoned.

They settled in across from the others, Ben leaning his head back, a couple of the gate pullers from the local sheriff’s posse joining them. “Y’all mind if we join you?”

“Come on. We don’t sit on ceremony.” It was still a little weird to Dalton, saying that. Usually it was Pops, and not all that terrible long ago it had been Granddaddy, to welcome folks in.

A warm hand landed on his shoulder, and he didn’t even have to look. “All locked down for the night, Bubba.”

“Good job, Dee.”

Dalton handed his beer up to Dustin, and Tony tossed him another.

Dustin came around to plop down next to him. “Damn, it’s gonna be a long weekend.”

Greg gave them both a hard look, proving that the second of their bullfighters was feeling his oats, maybe feeling his cups some. “Don’t borrow trouble, boys.”

They looked at each other, both barely keeping from rolling their eyes. Wasn’t any borrowing to it. It was what it was.

“Damn, that was a long night.” Gene Major, one of the stockmen, joined them, cracking his neck like a shot.

“And it’s just Friday.” Dalton and Dustin spoke in unison.

“Yeah. Shit, man.” Gene grabbed a Coke. He didn’t drink since his wife left him.

“Stop it, y’all. You’re begging trouble.” Tony was getting growly.

“Yeah, yeah.” They all grinned at one another, leaning back and enjoying the spring evening. It was damn near chilly, when you got right down to it. It wouldn’t be like this back home still. It would be nice and not too terrible hot, but chilly? Not hardly.