Chapter 3
Chapter Three
He didn’t want any part of that. It made his head hurt and it made his throat even drier. This place was like death on moisture. His nose was bleeding, his lips were chapped, and he couldn’t get enough to drink.
And he was from frickin’ Wyoming. He guessed he’d spent enough time on the East Coast that he’d gotten used to having a certain amount of humidity in the air.
Max had gone to get his girl from work. She was apparently doing rodeo over the weekend, but then she was working at a vet clinic during the week.
They were supposed to meet her father here at the hotel and all go upstairs and have a pizza together.
Now that wasn’t going to be any fun. A motel room was awfully small if things got violent.
Well, he sure hoped Mr. Daddy could handle a punch from a good-sized man.
Heading outside, he searched for the SUV Max had rented, again, for like the fiftieth time.
What he saw was a big old dually pulling up, the silver color almost obscured by a layer of dust, but the thing wasn’t old, and it wasn’t nasty. It was clearly a work truck.
He thought maybe it was another one of those construction workers, but then he saw the man who stepped out.
He was solid, rugged-looking, not too terribly tall, dressed in a pair of Wranglers, a white shirt, cowboy boots, and a straw cowboy hat.
Evan had been raised in cowboy country, even though his dad was a hockey guy, not a cowboy, and he knew this was somebody’s Sunday best. The jeans were creased, the shirt was starched, the boots were clean, and the hat didn’t have any sweat stains on it.
He would bet his last dollar that this was Daddy. And damn it, why did he have to get here before Max and that little girl did?
Evan waited, watching, as the man came inside and glared around the lobby, then went to the front desk, having not even paused to look at him for more than a couple of seconds.
“May I help you, sir?” The young receptionist behind the desk nodded at Hillary’s dad.
“Hola. I got to call up to Max Biyalik’s room.”
Bingo. Evan stepped forward, and the cowboy turned to put himself sideways to the desk, facing Evan as if he were a threat.
Evan held up his hands. “Hey, I’m Evan Halloway. I’m Max’s dad’s best friend. Max went to pick up your daughter.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “My girl has her own vehicle.”
Evan raised both of his. “Then I’m guessing they had some stuff they wanted to talk about before they got here to have pizza with us.”
He was not going to take shit from this man. End of story.
The clerk stared at them curiously, eyes going back and forth as if he was watching a tennis match.
The guy blew out a breath and then held out a hand to him. It was brown and a little bit gnarled already, even though the man didn’t seem old enough to have arthritis. It was steady as a rock, though, strong. “Sam Marrón.”
Evan shook hands, and he wasn’t trying to be intimidating or anything. It was simply a short, businesslike handshake. “Pleased to meet you.”
“You already ordered the pizza?”
“Yeah, Max texted me and said you liked supreme with green chile on it. I hope that’s all right.”
“That’s perfect. That means we can head upstairs, right?” Marrón glanced sideways at the clerk, and Evan understood this wasn’t for public consumption.
“Sure, of course, man.”
He led the guy to his room, which was in way better shape than Max’s.
Max was still eighteen and a fucking slob.
His room had had… Well, he was used to traveling, and he was compulsively neat.
There were two chairs, but Sam walked over and stared out of the window to remain standing. Evan thought it was sort of like looking at a caged tiger.
A caged tiger with a gold wristwatch and a heavy gold chain around his throat.
Evan didn’t know what to do, which was ridiculous. This was his job. He was a professional, and he could handle this.
So he cleared his throat. “Max’s father, Bobby, is laid up. He’s been in an accident, and he couldn’t make it down here, so I volunteered to come and help in his stead. I’m Max’s godfather, and I’ve been helping him with his hockey career.”
That was close enough to the truth.
Sam turned to face him. “I’d say I was pleased to meet you, but that would be a lie.”
Damn, that was how it was going to be. So he took a deep breath and put on a smile.
“Look, Sam, can I call you Sam? This is a situation that we’re in, and we’re just going to have to deal with it.”
Sam watched him with these dark eyes that resembled holes burned through a blanket. There was this immense stillness to the man, as if he was waiting for something. It was wild.
A little hot too. Which was absolutely not the appropriate thought to have at this moment, even if Evan was suddenly expanding his “type”.
There was no hotness.
None.
Zero.
About anything.
“How do you expect to deal with it? It’s a baby, no? It’s my grandbaby, my nieto. I’ve already told Hillary we’ll make a nursery in the house.”
“Sure, but Max has a financial responsibility, and he doesn’t want to not be a part of this kid’s life.”
Sam raised an eyebrow again. He was really good at doing one.
Not like the Dwayne Johnson, more like… Well, as if that was a normal expression for him.
“That’s quite a statement. He doesn’t not want to be a part of my grandchild’s life, but he doesn’t want to be a part of it, really. Is that what you’re saying?”
Evan blew out of breath because obviously there was no way he wasn’t going to misstep here.
“No, what I mean is that he’s scared, and he’s freaking out, but he knows this is his kid, and he wants to do right by him or her, and he wants to be a part of this somehow.” There. He would try for brutal fucking honesty and see if that didn’t work.
“I just want my little girl to be okay. It’s going to be a lot of hard times because of this. There’s going to be a lot of bills and all of the hurt feelings.”
There was something in the guy’s tone that told him he was speaking from experience. He could see that if Hillary was eighteen; there was no way this guy was any more than his mid-to-late-thirties, so he had to have been through this himself.
Evan took a deep breath, said a mental om, and released it. “Of course. I’m not trying to downplay any of that, and I’m not trying to belittle Hillary at all. I just know we need to sit down and talk about this.”
Sam’s shoulders came down from around his ears. “You’re right; we do need to sit and talk about this, but I’m gonna wait for the kids.”
“Okay.” Evan raised one shoulder in a shrug. “Are you opposed to chatting with me about something else?”
Sam held his hands out to his sides. “Like what?”
“Hell, anything. This is wild, and I’m not very good with quiet, I guess.” He was used to a team, even after retirement, and the sound of a raucous locker room.
Sam’s lips twisted. “I am.”
He didn’t roll his eyes, even though he wanted to. “Max says you do rodeo?”
Sam nodded his head. “I’m a bull fighter.”
“You’re a—oh. Well, that’s unexpected. How do you—I just thought all of those were in Spain.”
Evan didn’t know. It just seemed a little creepy. The whole red capes and bulls, the fancy gilt costumes, and then the poor bulls died at the end.
The whole thing was awful.
He wasn’t a fool. He knew that most cows ended up being hamburger, but straight-up animal stabbing for entertainment seemed a bit bloody for public consumption.
“Spain? What?” Sam seemed utterly confused.
“Are they Mexican too? Is that insulting? I don’t mean to be.” Evan preferred to know if he was being an asshole.
“Aye a la!” That was a frustrated expression, and it said a ton, even if he didn’t understand it. “Bull fighters are cowboy protection.” Sam shook his head, rolling his eyes. “So I make sure the bull riders get safely away from the bulls, no? I’m hired by the rodeo company to work.”
“So, you’re a rodeo clown?” That was what he’d heard as a kid.
Sam shook his head, and it was hard to tell whether he’d insulted the man again. Dammit. “That’s either Charlie or Pepe, depending on who’s the barrel man. I work with them. We got us a team—me and Kacey.”
It was clear as day that he’d offended Sam by calling him a rodeo clown, but it was the same thing. It wasn’t as if they were doing the dangerous job. They weren’t riding the bulls.
He supposed not everybody was built for that sort of thing, though. Just like not everybody was built to be on the ice.
He kind of shrugged and tried to fob it off with a grin. “You’d never know I was from Wyoming. None of my family were rodeo people though. My dad was a hockey guy, so I really don’t know dick about it. I’m sorry.”
“Even hockey people can learn, I suppose.” Sam did give him a smile then, spreading his hands. “Sorry, I’m proud of what I do, so it makes me crazy when people get it wrong.”
“It sounds like I really got it big wrong. Didn’t guys who fight bulls for the rodeo used to put on clown makeup?”
“Some of them still do, but they’re not the clowns. Only the guy that sits in the barrel and doesn’t do anything and cracks the jokes is the clown.”
“Okay, cool, so I’ve watched maybe one or two nights of bull riding on the TV, you know, with the big leagues.
So you’re the kind of guy who wears a jersey and a bulletproof vest underneath it, is that what you’re saying?
” Somewhere he was reaching deep into his memory for that hotel room with another Western hockey player who actually did have family who did rodeo, somebody from California, he thought.
“That’s it. See? You’re smarter than you look.”
“I’m smart enough to be thinking about kicking your ass. Simple mistake. You don’t have to be a jerk about it.” He raised an eyebrow, waiting to see what Sam would say to that. He could throw down. He wasn’t afraid to get into it with somebody.
Sam moved across the room and got right into his space. “Your boy—I know it’s not your son, but he’s your boy nonetheless—got my girl pregnant. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little combative.”