Chapter 19
NINETEEN
WEST
The Prestige
Winnie’s chaos lasts less time than I expect.
She feels damn good wrapped in my arms, and even better when she lets me feed her the eggs and bacon on sourdough that Cord has mangled.
Still, we manage to meld it into some semblance of a decent meal and the four of us eat together.
Conversation is stilted, and I leave her with Sally, watching unicorns and fairies on the TV in the smaller living area in Sally’s wing of the homestead.
“She’s gonna be all right.” Cord bumps his shoulder against mine, barely covering the wince the motion causes.
“Serves you right,” I grump at him for not looking after himself better. God alone knows how he’s been traveling without me hanging over him like the reaper come to collect his soul. Only this reaper wears a Stetson instead of carrying a scythe. “You’re an asshat for yelling at her.”
“Why is our language suddenly so colorful?” Cord ignores me. “I have a pregnant partner. What’s your excuse?” His wry, easy smile is all too easy to respond to, and I’m reminded how this charismatic man made his fortune—apart from being the smartest man in the room most of the time.
Occasionally lacking in emotional IQ, but maybe Lanie will help adjust that for him.
“I have a—”
Sparkly cowboy trainee waiting in the wings is the excuse dangling on my lips and ready to tumble free.
Then I remember that Cord doesn’t have a clue about the past months and I’ve been keeping secrets.
When that comes out, it will ruin the tentative peace that we’ve established in the aftermath of Winnie’s breakdown this morning.
And Cord hasn’t said a single word about us hooking up—another thing I’m wary about.
I force a smile and try again. “I have a brat of my own who has a fierce independent streak but also needs a decent dose of TLC. You can have her back if you want her?”
“Hell, no. Winnie has her life. I’ve never tried to intervene.” Cord puffs up all righteous and full of himself.
“Bullshit,” I cough into my fist, toeing my boots on at the frosted double front doors that depict the coyotes and the property’s namesake.
“Man, I thought that bullshit sneeze died a full death back in the nineties.” Billy leans against a veranda post, spinning his hat in his hands. “Showing your age, old man.”
I straighten, and something cracks in my neck on cue. Dammit, timing. “Aren’t you supposed to be off playing with toy bulls?” I snap, irritated at seeing him lounging on the homestead where traditionally only Cord, Levi, and I ever socialized.
This has always been hallowed ground, the three of us having built the house together so long ago. Actually, I haven’t seen the flamboyant chef this trip at all and Cord has been cooking for himself.
“Where is Levi these days, anyway?” I keep my tone casual, turning to Cord.
The rancher shrugs. “He drops in and out. Apparently he’s got a hookup in Valiant Peak he won’t tell anyone about, but it’s a bit of an open secret.” Something sparkles in Cord’s eyes that tells me he knows exactly who, but he’s keeping that morsel to himself for now.
I ignore his rumormongering. He can keep his secrets to himself.
I have no interest in who Levi is hooking up with or not.
Valiant Peak seems to have that effect on people.
First Levi, and Dallas has his own little love nest going on that I’m keen to avoid.
Even Dustan has shacked up with a random cowboy.
Next thing I know, I’ll have a picket fence with Winnie and Sally will be attending the local school.
Tension draws tight along my shoulders. I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck in the small town.
Sure, it’s a lovely town. Just fucking peachy, if you like that kind of stuff.
I just can’t stand the thought of being shoved into a nine-to-five job, driving a desk and living in a tiny house jammed next to another small house that looks like the next one in a street full of identical abodes.
“He’ll be fine. We’re not losing him forever.” Cord misinterprets my stance on small towns for concern over Levi’s love life.
“I couldn’t give a flying fuck,” I grump, striding off the veranda that wraps around the house and forgetting my hat. “Who’re the new ranch hands that I need to get to know this season?” I look back at Cord when he doesn’t immediately answer me. “What?”
“Billy can sort you out,” he says softly, watching me like I’m a wild bull about to charge back through the front of his precious homestead.
I glance across to the younger man, curls falling into his face, who stands on the veranda with us. “Billy knows who’s doing what with the new hands?”
Billy wisely says nothing, but he also stops fidgeting.
“That’s right.” Cord grins. “He’s taken on the job since you left. Done a good fine effort too. You said he should step up and you were right.”
The veranda drops out from underneath me. Hell, the whole house may as well crumble at my feet.
“You made Billy foreman when I left?” The words taste like stale Coyote dust that fills my mouth.
Cord’s head tips to one side. “Someone needed to do the job.”
But not someone I trained. Someone who’s twenty years too inexperienced. Someone who’s going to fuck it all right up on us.
But there is no us anymore. I walked away. I left.
And Cord replaced me.
What did you think would happen? I had my joyride.
Hell, I even drove north and decided I wanted to come back on a whim.
Huh. The man who planned someone else’s life out for him jaunted around, looking for a home.
My drifter’s existence was a joke. And now, when I tried to put down roots again, I forgot to ask if there was space in my old life for me back in it.
“Well, isn’t that just ducky.”
I stare between the two of them. No one says anything for a long moment. I refuse to budge, and my face can’t smile or shatter even when it wants to do both at once. None of us are breathing. This has to be a fucking joke. But from the lack of humor on Cord’s face, it’s not.
Feet pound the hardwood flooring inside the homestead. A moment later Sally rockets into my side, bursting through the doors to collide into me. I’m not sure if Winnie sent her or if it’s timing, but the interruption is much needed; otherwise the three of us are all due for asphyxiation.
“Hey, little scruff.” I sound like Winnie. “This might not be the best time?” I stroke her hair off her face where it’s ruffled on the side she’s been lying on, watching TV.
“It’s the perfect time. Mom says so.” Sally beams up at me and snuggles into my side.
Cord coughs from where he hasn’t moved.
I lean down and kiss the top of Sally’s head. “Your mom has big ears. You can tell her I said that, okay?”
“’Kay.”
“Can you also tell her that I’m going to stay with Dallas for a few days?
I’ve got some work to do there. I’ll see her on Friday night.
Will you do that for me?” No doubt that Winnie is eavesdropping like a pro and just heard everything I said, but those words are for the benefit of the men gathered around me.
“Sure, West. Kiss?” Sally proffers a cheek.
I press a kiss to her temple instead. “Look after your mom, okay? I’ll miss you both.”
“Sure.”
“West—” Cord starts, I expect with a backlog of arguments that he’s prepared in the last few minutes in order to get me to stay.
I round on him the moment his niece is safely inside the homestead. “They’re good here with you, right? You won’t spend hours fighting with your sister? Because Sally told me that she hates hearing you two yell at each other.”
The reality check stops him cold. “She said that?” Cord eyes me warily.
“Yeah, Cord. We all heard it. Fuck, everyone in the bunkhouse heard it.”
A glance across at Billy confirms my suspicions as Billy’s usually easy smile is absent.
Good. That means they all heard Winnie and me going at it the night before too, which was half the purpose of the window scene apart from being a longtime fantasy with her.
Hopefully they’d keep their hands and eyes to themselves while I’m not around to care for her.
Not that she can’t look after herself, but still.
“Look after the girls while I’m not here.”
“You don’t have to leave,” he objects. “There’s plenty of work.”
“But no job.” I look him full in the face. “Besides, I have a rider to train for Friday night.”
That little morsel of information drops like an echo in an empty chasm. My words repeat on themselves in pure silence until they run out of fucks to give.
Rather like me.
“You’re training again?” Cord looks at me, nonplussed. The tidbit hits like a sucker punch. The shock is easy enough to read in my best friend’s face, the hard lines around his eyes widening.
Billy wisely finds something else to do and leaves the veranda.
I nod. “He’s on the list for the Invitational. I’ll make sure our insurance is paid up. All aboveboard. We’ve been working together for months.”
Something akin to physical pain etches across Cord’s face. The last man I worked with on a bull was him, and we both know it.
A breath rattles from his chest. “I remember hours eating dirt while you cussed me out like a mother-bitch,” Cord reminisces softly, his mouth set in a tight line. Sadness creases his eyes as he squeezes my shoulder. “He’s a lucky rider, West. I look forward to seeing you both on Friday.”
Cord leaves me alone and unable to breathe with a closed door in my face in a place I once called home.
Well, fuck.
I just got everything I thought I wanted. So why does it hurt so damn much as I walk away? And why does it feel like I can never return?