Page 14 of Unforgettable Cowboy (Montana’s Rodeo Cowboys #1)

Bailey sighed. “I think he wants to use her to hurt Jenna to be honest. He wants to take the thing she loves most away from her. And she can’t afford to buy half from him. Dakota is probably worth thirty or forty thousand dollars with the training on her.”

“Did Chance train her?”

“Jenna did. She’s good.”

“Does she compete?”

Bailey shook her head. “Nope. But she can rope.” She met Hayes’s gaze. “Her dad is Pinto Walker.”

One of the roping greats who unfortunately also had an addiction to alcohol.

Hayes let out a low whistle. “If he taught her, then yes, I imagine she can rope. But Pinto had some issues.”

“Her family’s a little messed up.”

Hayes waited for Bailey to close the gate and remount before gesturing toward the house, a half mile away. “There’s no smoke rolling out the windows. That’s a good sign.”

Bailey gave a small laugh. “Indeed.”

“I’ll have to check in before we go, you know.” They’d agreed to work a half day so that Hayes could go to town and return to the ranch before Estelle’s first shift was over.

They rode the rest of the way to the ranch in silence. Bailey did her best to stay in the here and now, to not fight a battle that had not yet occurred, but Hayes had touched on a point that she herself had brought up and dismissed several times over the past few days.

If Jenna didn’t move the mare after the rodeo, then Bailey had a problem. She couldn’t continue to count on the kindness of the Matthews family to hide Dakota Sunshine, and she couldn’t head out to her rodeos and gear shows when she was responsible for the mare.

Jenna will come through.

She hoped.

*

The house was quiet when Hayes came into the mudroom. The battle of the bands was over, and he couldn’t help but wonder who’d finally tired of turning up their device to drown out the other. He wasn’t going to ask.

Estelle was at the sink, doing a final wipe. The enamel sparkled as did the window over the kitchen table.

“Hi.” He was half afraid to ask but dove in anyway. “How’d it go?”

“The morning went well.” Estelle spoke in a briskly neutral voice. She wrung out the sponge she’d just rinsed and placed in on the drainboard. “He’s asleep.”

That might explain the stillness in the house.

“Jess, the young man who’s coming to help, called and will be here a little early this evening.”

“All right.”

“And if you don’t need anything, I’m going to take a break in the sunshine.”

“You’ve been busy,” Hayes pointed out.

“It’s going to take a bit to put the house back in order, but so far, so good,” she allowed.

Hayes couldn’t remember it ever being “in order” to begin with, but that was life with three boys and a rancher. “I’m going to town, but I’ll be back before you leave.”

She gave a nod. “That will be fine. He seems to be able to get back and forth when he needs to.”

Hayes took that to mean that she hadn’t had to engage her knowledge of physics to get Wade in and out of his chair when he needed to take care of personal matters.

“I’ll eat in the sunshine while he’s asleep.” Estelle gathered her sweater and the insulated tote bag, which probably held her lunch, and then let herself out of the house.

Hayes got a quick drink of water and was about to follow her out of the house when Wade called in a low voice, “Is she gone?”

Hayes reversed course and walked into the living room where Wade was sitting upright in his recliner.

“She is.” Hayes narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “Were you faking sleep?”

Wade’s jaw shifted sideways. “It was the only way I could get her to turn down her music.” As opposed to him turning down the TV.

“I’m buying you headphones today.”

“That would be nice,” he agreed.

“Did she feed you yet?” It was almost one o’clock.

“Left a sandwich on the side table while I was asleep.”

“Actually asleep?”

“I conked out at some point.”

“And there you were. Defenseless.”

Wade gave him the stink eye and Hayes fought to keep from smiling. “I’m heading to town with Bailey. Will you be okay here for an hour or so?”

It was a rhetorical question.

“I managed to get out of the chair when I had to, the walker’s right there, so yeah. I’m okay.”

Hayes eyed his uncle, who again, was looking visibly older. Accidents did that to people. “Estelle is not going to leave until I get back.”

Wade gave a small snort. “Hurry home.”

*

“What happened to your red truck?” She and Hayes had traveled a good part of Montana in his early eighties Dodge Power Wagon the summer they’d been together, bouncing from rodeo to rodeo when Wade didn’t have them working on some ranch project.

“What didn’t?” Hayes asked and she couldn’t help but smile.

“Ultimately what happened?”

“I think it was Trev who tried to drive it across the river. But Jordan was there. I never did get the straight story. Anyway, there was a deep spot, and a hot engine hitting cold water caused some insurmountable problems and we sold him for scrap.”

“That’s too bad.”

He smiled reminiscently. “I had some good times in that truck.”

So had she. “If someone had told me six months ago that I would be riding in another truck with you, I would have thought they were nuts.”

“Because you never wanted to see me again?”

“The reverse—I figured that you never wanted to see me.” He shot her a look and she explained the obvious. “Because of the way we parted.” She twisted the simple silver ring she wore. “I overreacted. I was too afraid of my own feelings to see that you weren’t that into me.”

His chin lifted a fraction of an inch, but he kept his gaze directed at the road in front of him. “I didn’t say I wasn’t into you. I said I wasn’t a danger to you.”

Her lips parted as she regarded his profile. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I wasn’t your stepdad looking to manipulate you into doing something you didn’t want to do.

You were going to college. I was heading to the rodeo circuit.

I wasn’t going to change course, and neither were you.

” He gave her a quick look before bringing his eyes back to the road.

“I was totally into you. It just wasn’t the time.

” His mouth flattened. “An honest conversation would have cleared things up.”

“No doubt,” she said, tearing her gaze away from his profile. She was surprised when he kept talking.

“Even a clue about what you were going to do would have helped. Things were great and then you were gone. I couldn’t imagine what I’d done to make you dump me like that.”

“You didn’t do anything.” She let another mile pass before she asked, “How do you think things would have gone had we had that conversation?” He understood now that they hadn’t been ready for long term, but had he truly understood back then, without the benefit of hindsight?

“Good question,” he said before slowing to turn into Edna’s Dog Rescue. “It wouldn’t have been a feel-good situation,” he admitted. “But it would have cleared up some of the mystery.”

“Maybe. I don’t know that I could have articulated.”

“It would have been better than a note,” he said as he parked. “Mind if I go in with you?”

And with that the subject was done.

“Of course not.” Bailey got out of the truck and waited for Hayes to walk around the hood to join her at the door. “I did notice that your ranch is very dog-poor.”

“The dogs that raised me and my brothers have passed on, and Wade never got another. I don’t know if he doesn’t have time or if he simply is fine doing without, but I miss having a dog.”