Chapter Twenty-Three
Axle
The television throws a pale glow across the ceiling, and the only light in the room comes from the documentary we’re halfway through.
The beer bottle hangs loose between my fingers.
Jovie is curled on her side beside me, nursing another one of those wine spritzers she likes so much. Her hair is a tangled mess from where she’s been lying on the pillow for the last hour.
Another detective is talking about the investigation.
A grainy photo flashes across the screen. Then another. And another.
The narrator begins detailing how Robert Cottingham lured women from bars and nightclubs before drugging them.
I grimace. “Geezus.”
The documentary goes into details I don’t particularly want to hear, but somehow can’t stop listening to.
The women had simply gone out for a night with friends. Had drinks. Danced. Then disappeared. Their abused, mutilated, and burned bodies were later found. Often without their limbs or head to make them harder to identify, gaining him the moniker The Torso Killer.
I shake my head. “That is insane.”
“What part?”
“The whole fucking thing.”
She snorts.
I glance over.
“No, seriously. I just …” I gesture toward the screen. “I never really thought about it before.”
“Thought about what?”
“How dangerous going out to clubs can be for women. They just went out to enjoy an evening. Blow off some steam.”
Her expression softens. “Yeah.”
I frown. “I mean, obviously, I know bad things happen. But hearing all that …” I shake my head. “It’s fucked up.”
She takes a sip of her drink. “It is.”
The documentary keeps playing.
Some retired detective talks about predators looking for isolated targets. Women separated from friends. Women walking alone. Women whose drinks were left unattended.
I stare at the screen.
Then at Jovie.
Then back at the screen.
“Do y’all really think about that stuff all the time?”
She laughs. “Of course we do. All the time.”
I frown. “All the time?”
I take a drink. “That’s bullshit.”
She settles deeper into her pillow. “Before I go somewhere, I think about where I’m parking.”
I blink. “Parking?”
“Yep. I make sure it’s close and well lit so I don’t have to walk across a dark parking lot alone.”
I stare at her.
She keeps going. “I think about who I’m going with. How I’m getting home. Whether my phone is charged. Whether my location is shared with somebody.”
I let out a low whistle. “Damn.”
“In big cities, it’s not just clubs,” she continues.
The documentary fades into the background. Now I’m paying attention to her.
“It’s walking home from dinner. Getting on the subway. Taking a rideshare. Getting in your apartment elevator.”
I stare at her. “The elevator?”
She shrugs. “Yeah. If a strange man gets into an elevator with me, I’m on alert. A lot of bad can happen in ten stories.”
“You’re on alert even if he isn’t doing anything?”
“Always.”
The thought makes my stomach twist.
Because I’ve never once gotten on an elevator and wondered whether I’d make it off. Never once walked through a parking garage and checked behind me or worried about whether someone slipped something into my drink at a bar.
The realization sits heavy in my chest.
“That sucks.”
“Welcome to being a woman.”
I shake my head. “No wonder y’all always travel in packs.”
A few moments pass.
Neither of us is really watching the program anymore.
I study her profile.
The way her eyes stay fixed on the screen. The way her fingers wrap around her glass.
Then a thought occurs to me.
“Would you ever want to live somewhere like that?”
She looks over. “Like where?”
“New York.”
Her answer comes instantly. “Me? Manhattan? Never.”
The certainty surprises me.
“Why not?”
She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling. “I don’t care to live in the sky, above an island so small that if everyone who lived there came outside at the exact same time, it would cause the entire infrastructure to collapse.”
I bark out a laugh.
She points her glass at me. “I’m serious. Living in an apartment that I can’t afford with nothing but my expensive shoe collection to keep me company? No thank you.”
She takes a sip from her glass.
“I do think it would be amazing for a weekend though. The museums. Restaurants. Central Park.” Her voice grows softer. “I bet it’s beautiful at Christmas. Ice-skating in Rockefeller Center, like in the movies. But living there?” She shakes her head. “No. It could never be home.”
“I don’t know, Doc. I could see you somewhere fancy. A penthouse. Luxury car. Some high-end sports medicine clinic, treating wealthy athletes.”
I can picture her in designer clothes and high-rise offices.
She shakes her head. “I don’t need any of that.”
“What do you imagine home to be?” I ask.
Her face lights up with a smile that reaches her eyes. “I want a family. A big one. A handsome, hardworking husband. A mess of feral kids.”
I raise a brow. “Feral?”
She waves her hand dramatically. “Yep. Dirt-covered little monsters, running around barefoot.”
I can practically see it.
“A house on a couple of acres. But not too big.”
“No?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want us to be right on top of each other, but I want it cozy enough that we can’t hide away from each other either.” Her eyes drift toward the ceiling again. “I want us to sit down at a table every evening for dinner.”
“Yeah?”
She nods.
“Then sit on the front porch, looking up at the stars at night.” A smile tugs at her lips. “Watch the kids playing in the yard.”
What she’s describing sounds an awful lot like the life I grew up in here at Wildhaven Storm Ranch. Family dinners. Nights on the porch. Kids running wild, free, and not scared of anything.
I look over at her.
And suddenly, the idea of Jovie living in a sleek city apartment seems silly. Like trying to fit a handful of freshly picked wildflowers into a crystal vase.
Pretty. But out of place.
“Then why do you want the job with Dr. Chaz?” I ask. “A different city every night. Never staying in one place for long. Only rubbing elbows with busted-up cowboys with commitment issues.”
Her eyes find mine. “Well”—she shrugs—“just because I want the white picket fence doesn’t mean I need it tomorrow.”
Fair point.
She takes another sip.
“It’ll give me a chance to travel. See new places.” Her smile widens. “On the Pbr’s dime.”
I chuckle.
Smart.
“And I can save my pennies so I can afford to open my own practice here in Wildhaven someday. Then I can help my future non-busted cowboy husband afford that fence I want.”
I grin. “I’m sure wherever he is, he’ll appreciate that.”
She nudges my shoulder. “So, what’s your plan?”
“My plan?” I grin. “To become rich and famous.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know. I mean, after that. What does Axle Trust’s future look like? Once you’ve collected all the buckles you can fit in your sock drawer and broken every bone you have left.”
I stare at the ceiling and think about it for a moment. I try to imagine it, but the picture that pops into my head is Jovie sitting on a front porch swing, her hair piled on top of her head, watching a pack of blond-haired babies running wild.
“Add a few more acres and a big-ass barn, and it’s more or less the same as you.”
She turns toward me. “Really?”
“Really.”
The smile that appears on her face causes something to twist inside my chest.
Then I point a finger at her. “Except there’s no fucking way my woman is putting up a sissy-ass white picket fence.”
She gasps. “White picket fences are adorable.”
“They’re decorative bullshit that serve no real purpose. She’ll get a split rail with barbed wire to keep the kids and livestock in.”
“Keep the livestock in. That’s practical,” she mutters.
“Well, yeah, you gotta have horses. You still ride, don’t you?”
“I haven’t in a long time,” she admits. “I mean, I’ve been on the back of one with Cabe. But I haven’t ridden one on my own in years.”
She sets the wineglass to the side and lies back against the pillows and yawns.
“Funny. Sounds like we are on the same life trajectory,” she muses as her eyes flutter closed.
She’s right. From the rodeo circuit to a peaceful life back here in Wyoming.
And that’s a hell of a thing to realize at two o’clock in the morning while lying in a blanket fort in the middle of her cabin floor, watching a documentary about a serial killer.
Two minutes later, she’s softly snoring. I go through my nightly routine of turning off the TV, taking our dishes to the sink, and carrying her to bed.
She curls onto her side, and I tuck a blanket around her.
Then I slip back to my cabin.
And into another cold shower.