Chapter Twenty-One
R oped.
Tucker’s mouth twisted. Roped and tied. If Jackson had been a champion calf roper he couldn’t have done a better job of it.
Asking a favor he would never refuse, taking Jeremy somewhere he really wanted to go, and only after he had—of course—agreed, tossing in that there would be someone else coming along for the ride.
The woman he wanted to be with so much life kept tossing reminders at him about why it would be stupid to let that happen.
And so now here he sat, paying a lot more attention to the rough track he’d already driven a couple of times than he needed to, so he wouldn’t pay any—okay, some, maybe—to the woman in the passenger seat.
He was thankful Jeremy was in a chattering sort of mood as he sat with an arm around each dog.
Normally he’d put them in the way back, but Jeremy had wanted them both with him in the back seat, and they weren’t going to be out on a road in traffic, so he’d given in.
The boy was clearly delighted with Lobo’s presence, and the fact that the rather intimidating German shepherd obviously liked Jeremy’s laidback but occasionally mischievous golden, who also obviously liked his new friend.
And Jeremy was still in an excited, chattering mood.
“—thought maybe they wouldn’t want me to go there anymore, but Dad said since it was one of my favorite places I should not be scared and still go and just be really, really careful. And take Maverick, which is good, ’cuz he loves to swim. Does Lobo like to swim?”
He saw Emily turn her head to look at the boy and the two dogs in the back seat. “Honestly, I don’t know,” she said. “I know he can, because that’s part of Chance’s training, but whether he likes it or not, I’m not sure.”
“Guess we’ll find out, huh?” the boy asked happily.
“Uh…I don’t know.”
She shifted her gaze to Tucker, who slowed on the now barely discernable trail so he could look at her. Because it was only polite, of course, to look at someone when they spoke to you. Not because he just liked looking at her…
“I’m not really prepared for a wet dog,” she said.
He couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Don’t worry. We’ve learned. There’s a whole stack of towels in the back.”
She smiled back at him, and annoyingly his pulse gave a little skip. “Oh. So is this place a swimming hole?”
“It’s a good place for it. Pretty, too, with the water coming down the chute and over the ledge.”
“It’s a waterfall,” Jeremy exclaimed proudly. But then he frowned slightly. “It’s not as big now. But Nic says it’ll get big again, after summer.”
“I’m sure it will,” Emily said with a wide smile at the boy. “And I’m glad you’re not afraid of the place after you got caught there by the storm.”
“Nah,” the boy assured her, a little bit of ego sneaking into his voice. “That was like Uncle T says, just wrong place wrong time.”
“I’m sure he’s right.”
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t read anything beyond reassurance to Jeremy in her voice.
The boy and the dogs were scrambling out of the car the instant he unlocked the doors after he got the car parked, out of the way but still close.
They ran over to the pool of water beneath the low but wide waterfall, which was about half what it had been the night of the storm, from what Jackson had told him when he’d first brought him here on a tour of the ranch.
He grabbed the cooler Nic had handed him, with chilled sodas he had the feeling they’d be grateful for.
“It’s pretty,” Emily said, clearly meaning it as she looked at the stream flowing over the low, limestone edge, gathering into the pool below before tumbling over the rocks at the other end and continuing on its way.
“It is now. Jackson said it’s a lot more imposing when the stream’s at full flow, coming down out of the chute.” He gestured up toward the narrow miniature canyon formed by some large boulders above the pool, through which the stream flowed. “The falls cover the whole ledge.”
“And that’s what it was like that night?” She paused long enough to look, as if to assure herself that Jeremy was engrossed in his play with the dogs, Maverick already flank-deep in the water, Lobo being more cautious in this new place. “When Jeremy got lost?”
He appreciated that she was concerned about Jeremy hearing that word. “Yeah. Although as he always insists, he wasn’t lost. He knew where he was and how to get home, he just couldn’t because of the storm.”
“Good point,” she said. “I’m glad he had the sense to realize he should shelter in place.”
He gave her a considering look. “This really is a different sort of town, when the chief of police rolls out to find a missing kid.”
“It is, but that’s Shane Highwater,” she said. “He’s a big reason Last Stand is what it is.”
He believed it. The guy stood out like a beacon. He was just glad there was only respect and admiration in her voice. Which warned him he was straying into dangerous territory again. She was a police officer, with all that came with that job, and he needed to remember that.
“Lobo seems to be liking it,” he said abruptly, watching as the black dog waded in farther and began to nose at the water.
“He’s probably liking the cool, if nothing else.” She let out a chuckle. “I have to say my air-conditioning bill’s gone up a bit since I got him. I’m used to some heat, but he needs it a bit cooler with all that fur.”
“And black fur at that.”
He could handle this. As long as they kept the topic to Jeremy and the dogs, he’d be fine. He just had to be careful not to stray into anything more personal.
Which did not explain why he abruptly asked, “Where’s your place?”
“On the north side of town, up above the hospital. And,” she said, looking at Lobo with an expression that was a combination of affection and resignation, “my interior is mostly white. To better show off the black fur he sheds.”
“Well, at least you know where he’s been.”
She let out a full-on laugh, one that made him glad he hadn’t reined himself in on the joking reply. Which was crazy. There was no way making her laugh like that should please him so much. But it did.
“Don’t you guys wanna come in and cool off?” Jeremy called out.
He could use some cooling off right at this moment, but he didn’t think getting soaking wet with Emily would be wise. And the images that shot through his mind then took some beating down.
“Why don’t we come back some day when there’s not a bunch of people back at the barn,” he suggested.
“Oh. Yeah. I kinda forgot.”
“Gotta love the selective awareness of childhood,” Emily murmured, and this time he was the one who laughed.
She dropped down, easily, to sit at the edge of the water, watching Jeremy and the two dogs. He took a breath and did the same, carefully, jaw tight until he made it. Only when he was settled did he realize she’d noticed.
Feeling pressured to explain, he said gruffly, “Couple of parts don’t work together like they used to.”
She looked surprised. “I didn’t realize you still had trouble.”
He gave her a half-shrug. This was not something he talked about. Not even to the gently probing Lily Highwater had he talked about the long-lingering consequences.
“I assume this is an aftereffect of that last bull ride?”
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry it still causes you problems. Of course, I was amazed you were back on your feet at all, let alone as fast as you were.”
He gave her a sideways look. “It felt like forever to me.”
She looked slightly discomfited, although he hadn’t meant it as a slam. “I’m sure it did. I can’t imagine the pain you must have been in.”
He grimaced, but couldn’t seem to stop himself from going on, about this thing he never spoke of.
“It was…bad. Especially at first. But it finally settled into just a low-level ache all the time. Something I could work through. And eventually it either ebbed, or I got used to it. By then it was mostly being tired. Years of not having any energy.”
“Because your body was using all it had to heal.”
“So they told me.” He sighed. “I used to wonder, if I brought it on myself. If I got too cocky after those four wins.”
“Second-guessing, the ever-present downside of being a risk-taker,” she said, sounding painfully familiar with the feeling.
“You, too?” He could only imagine what she might have had to second-guess in her career. But he probably should imagine it, often. It would help him keep a safe distance between them.
“I’ve had a few occasions. But I have to say, I admired you for the way you came back. Even more than for the championships.”
That surprised him. But before he could say something stupid, he heard a loud splash and his head snapped around, afraid he was going to have to dive in after Jeremy. He relaxed when he saw the boy was just splashing the dogs, who were biting at the flying water playfully.
He turned and only then realized Emily had been on her feet, ready to do the same. On her feet much faster than he could have managed it. That old sour feeling bit at him. It usually didn’t bother him much. He’d adapted, knew what not to try. But somehow this stung, that Emily…
His own thoughts trailed off as he realized he was thinking about it wrong. That it wasn’t pretty, sweet Emily who beat him to her feet, it was Officer Stratton—trained, fit, and proactive.
“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “I forget you’re a cop for a second or two.”
She studied him for a moment before she said, her head tilted thoughtfully, “In a way, it’s kind of like what you had to do.
Living with that low-level reminder, constantly.
Just like that ache is always there, down deep, for you, being a cop is there for me.
It makes me look at things differently than most people, see something and mentally prepare for what could go wrong, for what I might need to do in response. ”
He stared at her, processing what she’d said. It made so much sense he was a little astonished he hadn’t thought about it that way. “I…get that,” he said with a slow nod.
She smiled at him, and he felt as if he’d won another of those fancy belt buckles he had stashed away back in L.A. “And in a way,” she said, “what you did was a lot more likely to get you hurt than what I do. But you kept riding, kept competing.”
“Until I did get hurt? Yeah, I did. I had to.” He hesitated, then admitted the truth. “Rodeo was…the only thing that kept me going.”
“So you didn’t think about getting hurt, or worse?”
“I didn’t worry about it,” he corrected.
He didn’t want to say what came to his mind next, but as had happened before with her, he couldn’t seem to shut up.
“Because…I felt like I didn’t have much to lose.
Life when I wasn’t competing sucked. So if I got killed, oh well. Sometimes I even wished for it.”
She stared at him for a long, silent moment, while he sat there beyond stunned that he’d said it. He hadn’t admitted all that to anyone, not even Jackson. And here he was, telling this woman he’d spent at most maybe three or four hours with?
Then, gently, she reached out and laid a hand over one of his. And her voice was impossibly soft and sweet when she said, “I’m very, very glad you didn’t get that wish.”
Time seemed to freeze in his mind, and all he could do, sitting there in the Texas summer sun, with the splashing and laughing and happy barking fading into the background, was acknowledge that he’d never felt anything quite like that simple touch.