Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Leather
Cheyenne
I’d just finished putting Country Road away from working her when commotion over by the round pen drew my attention.
“She’s gonna kill you, Goodie.” Cash’s dad, Clint Mooney, stood before the pipe-stall round pen, resting his arms and one of his feet against the rails in a casual stance.
His large sunglasses shielded his eyes, but a grin tugged on his lips.
Cash stood beside him, in a similar stance, though not all of the usual Cash flare and energy was present.
He was still worried about Maverick. I could tell.
But standing like that, next to his father, it was like taking a glimpse into Cash’s future. The two looked so incredibly similar.
I made my way over, the little girl in me nervous as all hell. Clint “Bad” Mooney was big here in Texas as a successful cattle rancher, but I’d grown up watching him bronc ride. He was a legend. A celebrity in my mind. And I was sort of, kind of sleeping with his nephew.
I bit back a giddy squeal. I didn’t want to interrupt, but who the hell would miss out on the opportunity to watch one of their heroes work?
“Either shut up, or help me, dammit,” the man in the round pen, Goodie, Mister Mooney had called him, grumbled back, not daring to drag his eyes away from the red filly angrily circling him in the round pen.
The two looked similar, though the other was maybe a few years younger and more clean-cut.
His alligator boots were too nice, his periwinkle paisley shirt looking more like something he’d wear beneath a nice sports coat than to ride in, and his belt buckle gleamed just a little too brightly.
Like it didn’t get enough wear and tear.
He was a businessman if I’d ever seen one.
Brothers, then.
“I told you not to go in there.” Mister Mooney chuckled as the filly rushed at his brother.
Goodie sidestepped the horse before shooting a curse out.
Okay, so he wasn’t all businessman. I’d seen plenty of city slickers try their hand at riding horses.
This guy knew what he was doing. Which made sense if he was brothers with the famous Bad Mooney.
“I gotta get this fuckin’ pig workin’, don’t I? ”
Mister Mooney shrugged, a smile lighting up his face, making him look extra Cash-like. “Can’t get her workin’ if she kills you, dickhead.” Just then, Cash’s dad turned to me, and he nodded my way. “Come on over here, girl. I see you lurkin’.”
My heart hammered in my chest, excitement brewing like a storm. I’d not gotten to officially meet Mister Mooney. I mean…there was the one time Cash had given Charlie that horrible, but equally funny shirt—that she still proudly wore, might I add—but I’d never gotten to, like, actually talk to him.
“Sorry, sir,” I managed to squeak out as I came to his side.
He pulled down his sunglasses for a long moment, eyeing me with an intensity that made me want to fidget before turning back to the round pen.
He didn’t speak for a long time. So long I thought he wasn’t going to say anything at all.
Should I say something? Should I tell him what a big fan I was of his?
How I’d watched damn near every rodeo he’d competed in and had his whole final season recorded on tapes in a box somewhere that my daddy kept safe for me.
No. That just made me sound like a crazy person.
Maybe just introduce myself, then? I looked to Cash, who still stood beside him, for something, anything, but he was more focused on the arena.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Mister Mooney stopped me with his gravelly voice. “So, your trailer burnt down?”
I opened my mouth, shut it, opened it again. It was so blunt and direct, and I wasn’t quite sure what I’d expected, but it hadn’t been that. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Cash says you been helpin’ Maverick?” He glanced between Cash and me.
I thought of last night. I could argue that he’d been the one to take care of me, but I nodded once more, another, “yes, sir,” falling from my lips.
He nodded just as Goodie’s growls of frustration echoed on the wind. “Speak of the devil, Where the hell’s Maverick?” Goodie railed. “He’s the only one can get anythin’ other than piss and vinegar out of this goddamn nag.”
“Maverick’s got his own babies to worry ‘bout.” Mister Mooney waved him off with a dismissive hand. “And this horse ain’t Maverick’s problem, she’s yours.”
“Yeah, well Maverick’s baby doesn’t have a burnin’ keg full of black powder for a fuckin’ brain.” The little red filly raced by, flailing out her hind leg as she tried to kick him for emphasis.
I looked between him and Mister Mooney. “Can…can I ask why he’s in there, sir?”
Mister Mooney’s face sliced into a grin.
“When the boys bought this group of babies, we decided to place a wager. Each of us would break one. The most broke and rideable one that sells for the highest dollar wins…This here’s Goodie’s charge.
We was gonna call her Widowmaker, but…well, Goodie is gonna die alone, just like he’s lived his entire life so, it doesn’t fit. ”
“Shut up,” Goodie groaned.
Mister Mooney nodded back to the red filly before focusing his attention on his brother once more.
“You should spend less time bitchin’ and more time workin’ that horse before she turns your head into a canoe.
What good is it doin’ ya to yell at me about how you hate her?
She hates you just as bad. More maybe. Did you try hittin’ her in the head with a shovel? ”
The first smile on Goodie’s face was like a sunrise on a new day, bright and refreshing. Holy shit, no wonder Cash was a cocky sonovabitch…look at his fuckin’ dad and uncle. “She bent the shovel and snapped the goddamn handle in half.”
The chink of spurs drew my attention and suddenly Maverick stood behind us. A shiver traversed the length of my spine as I took him in. He wore his usual all black, his aviator sunglasses hiding his eyes from me, but the look he snuck my way wasn’t any less scalding.
Mister Mooney let out a string of curses. “God damn it, Maverick, don’t sneak up on me like that. You’re gonna give me a fuckin’ heart attack and then Cash, here, is yours and Ryder’s fuckin’ problem. Do you want that?” He nodded at his son for extra emphasis.
Cash grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He wasn’t wearing any of his godawful, obnoxious sunglasses like usual. It was like the light in him had dulled, dimmed.
Who’d have thought I preferred the brash, brazen brunette over this. Give me back the Cash who perpetually stuck his foot in his mouth and somehow miraculously got laid, not this sullen, sad, serious version.
Maverick’s lips peeled back into a smirk as he shook his head before gesturing toward Goodie in the round pen with the red filly. He still didn’t talk, but it’s like Mister Mooney understood him anyway.
“I think he’s tryin’ to get himself killed.” Mister Mooney chuckled. “Course, he’s just as bad at that as he is at everything else.”
Goodie clapped back, a glare on his face. “Fuck you, Bad.”
Mister Mooney laughed once more, glancing back at Maverick. “Whatdya think, boy? What’s the problem here?”
Maverick’s lips pursed as he took a step up to the pipe-stall between his uncle and I.
Still silent, he slipped his sunglasses down, his eyes sharply focused on the arena for a long moment before he gave a single shake of his head.
Mister Mooney’s voice drew my attention.
“He’s undoin’ all the shit we spent yesterday fixin’, right? ”
Maverick nodded, gaze still focused on the filly.
Goodie turned and bolted for the fence as she raced past him, trying to climb out and charge him again. He hauled himself up the metal piping and fell over with a thump just beside Cash. “Well, if you’re so good, you handle it.” He stabbed a finger at Maverick.
Dear God…she was psychotic. Worry knit my brow, a scowl curling my lips downward, my heart thumping faster as Maverick looked at Mister Mooney, an unspoken question in his eyes.
“Get in there and see if you can calm her down.” Mister Mooney nodded.
He was going to get in there with her? That hell beast?
Maverick climbed the fence and dropped down on the other side, his gaze never leaving the horse, who snorted and pawed the earth. I gripped the pipe-stall, watching. Waiting.
He didn’t rush. In fact, he didn’t do anything at all. He just stood there, watching her as she watched him. He waited, as if he didn’t have a single other worry in the world. Nowhere to go. No place to be.
Mister Mooney moved to help Goodie up. “Only thing that fuckin’ horse is good for is target practice,” Goodie groaned as he brushed himself off. “Let me go get my Henry rifle and punch a couple air holes in that nag’s head.”
Mister Mooney settled back at my side once more and nodded at the arena. “Maverick’ll get her sorted out.”
“I don’t think so, Bad.” Goodie settled on the other side of me, his fancy cologne drifting on the wind and filling my nose.
He even smelled of money. Wealth. He reminded me of that old Marty Robbins song, The Cowboy In The Continental Suit, except he hadn’t ridden no brute.
“Last time I seen a horse that was both that mean and that stupid was that old broodmare dad used to keep in the pasture to keep the coyotes away from the sheep.”
“Maverick’s got a way with the wild ones,” Bad said, pulling a leather pouch out of his back pocket. “He’ll calm her down.”
Goodie glanced past me to see what Mister Mooney was doing as he pulled some rolling papers and a bag of tobacco out. “I thought you quit smokin’?” Goodie asked before looking at me. “I’m sorry, Miss. Where are my manners?” He offered out a hand to me. “Goodfellow Mooney.”
I smiled, placing my hand in his and giving it a firm shake. “Cheyenne Harris, sir.”
“You one of Cash’s girls?” he asked. So, he hadn’t heard Mister Mooney and I talking then.