Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“Do you want me to bring you anything back?”
Hillary’s answer was more barfing, and Sam had to get the hell out of there, so he did.
It wasn’t that he was worried about puke. He wasn’t.
He wasn’t sure why the good Lord decided that women had to toss cookies when they were pregnant. That was over his pay grade.
But God knew Hillary’s mother and stepmother had been pregnant more than once, so she had at least one other woman she could call.
“All right then, I’ll be back. I’m meeting Evan. Call if you need me.”
He wasn’t running out to the truck because that would be the act of a coward, but he kind of jogged.
He wished he could have brought Kacey with him to breakfast.
It was tough to play hardball with Evan—the guy was just a proxy, not family, not the one he was wanting to be mad at.
So, he wished Kacey was here, but he’d had to go home, see his man, do his thing before they both had to meet in El Paso.
He sighed.
They had El Paso this week, Flagstaff next week, and then Prescott, and then after that, an entire week in Lovington to work that big fair.
The simple fact was, he’d end up leaving for El Paso Friday morning and wouldn’t be home for almost three weeks.
Dammit
“Aye de mi. Did you have to do all this during cowboy Christmas, mi’ja? Did you want to make my life nuts?”
He was going to leave her home, let her deal with the critters and her shit, give them both some time.
He had to sit down and figure out his schedule.
And he had to figure out what he was going to do about Max and Evan, because they were going to have to leave. So, they needed to have at least a framework put into place before everybody went their separate ways.
He pulled up at the restaurant, which was near Evan’s hotel, one of his favorites.
Apparently, Evan had eaten there the first day in town with Max and really liked it.
He parked, hunting around for Evan’s rental car, and he saw it pull in about the same time as he got out of the truck to head for the restaurant.
Evan met him at the front door, giving him a nod and a smile that brightened up his slate-blue eyes and made the scar on his cheek pull up. “Hey, you. Smells like heaven out here, huh?”
“God, yes. I’m trying to decide whether I want migas or pancakes. Or both.” He held the door open and grimaced. “Although after listening to Hillary toss up her toenails this morning, I have to admit I’m a little on the ‘I need to settle with some coffee first’ side.”
“Oh God, I remember when Bobby’s wife Annette was sick with their last one. It’s not pretty.”
Sam raised an eyebrow as they settled into their table. “How many does she have? They have, I guess.”
“Max is the oldest of four. They’re all sort of stair-steppy by a couple years.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of kids.” It really wasn’t. He had siblings and cousins who had a ton, but it seemed like a lot for a fancy family from Boston.
“They like having kids.” Evan shrugged. “So I hear Max proposed.”
“Which means that you heard that Hillary said no, huh?”
“Yeah. He was a little butt-hurt.”
Sam shrugged one shoulder; he didn’t care. “It’s not like the boy’s in love with her any more than she’s in love with him.”
Evan seemed to get that. “I mean, you can tell that they’re fond, and that they had a good time.”
“Yes, that’s not a basis for a long-term relationship, which unfortunately they have whether they wanted one or not. I’m not sure what he was thinking.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what to say about that. I think that Hillary’s smarter than he is, on that front, by saying no.” Evan shrugged, “I mean, he was trying to do the right thing.”
“Yeah, I think so, and I respect the hell out of him for it.” It didn’t mean it had been a good idea, but the intention was coming from the head, not the ball sac.
“But there’s no reason for them to legally get all entwined just to decide in two years that they can’t do this and have to legally untwine it. ”
“Exactly.”
They were inside now and waiting in the short little line, and Sam could smell the coffee, rich and pungent. Hell yes.
“Senor Marrón?” One of the men in the lobby nodded to him, tipping his hat with an excited smile. “Great job on Saturday. I thought for sure that bull had that cowboy trapped, and you just grabbed him by the horns and spun him. We’re lucky to have you.”
He held out one hand to shake. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”
“I don’t suppose…” The man’s cheeks went pink. “I hate to ask since you’re standing in line, but can I get you to sign something for my son? He really is a fan, and it would mean a lot if I could tell him it’s the man that he saw fighting bulls signed something for him…”
Sam chuckled and nodded. “Of course, por supuesto.”
He tried to think of something he had. Then he remembered that his cap was new, and one of the ones from the big bull riding league, which he didn’t work very often but he had a couple times.
He pulled it off his head and signed it, handing it over. “Only worn it this morning. Pulled it unworn from the closet.”
“Wow, thank you. I mean, he’s gonna be over the moon. Thank you so much.” The man bobbed his head, then left them to it, clearly not wanting to push anything.
“Damn.” Evan gave him a sideways, amused glance. “I feel like chopped liver here. It’s a weird feeling. But that was really cool, man.”
Sam chuckled. “Used to it being you, no?”
“Hell, yes. But this is your world. I just get to look-in. And it’s… well, it’s pretty wild. Like, I’m so focused on hockey I don’t think of other sports.”
“Mira, look—at least you consider it a sport—lots of guys don’t.” Sam knew better—just because they weren’t much on the TV didn’t mean dick.
“Oh no, I saw what you did out there. It’s crazy. But I mean, if we’re going to call jumping motorbikes a sport, we’ve got to call what you do a sport.”
Sam chuckled. “So, really, how is Max?”
“He wants to go home. How about Hillary?”
“Sick as a dog and rethinking her life choices a little bit. Talking about the baby’s bedroom though, already. I think she’s gonna paint next time I’m out of town. It’s all good.” He met Evan’s eyes. “Let’s wait till we get sat to talk details.”
Evan nodded, understanding in the blue eyes. “That sounds perfect.”
They talked about nothing really. Evan told him about Massachusetts, and he told Evan that they had a ski resort up here and a team down in Albuquerque that did junior hockey.
“So, how far is that from here?”
“About an hour and a half, depending on traffic and everything else. For me, closer to two hours.” Not that this baby was going to play hockey before it learned how to ride a horse. He thought hockey seemed a little scary.
Besides, he thought this was going to be a baby girl.
“Cool. That’s awesome. I saw there’s a rink up here in Santa Fe that does public ice. I might have to go skate. You should come with me.”
Sam shook his head right away, grinning. “Lord. That might kill me. I ain’t good on ice.”
“Well, ice skates are different than ice storms, buddy.”
Damn it, that sounded like a dare.
Sam couldn’t in good conscience turn down a dare, but he didn’t want to ice skate.
He didn’t think he was going to like it. He didn’t like feeling like an idiot. He hated feeling like an idiot worse than he didn’t like ice skating, which he didn’t know if he didn’t like but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t.
“Huh, well maybe you should go talk to the people at the rink and see—since you’re famous and all—if they’ll let you have a private session at, you know, after hours. That way you don’t have to worry about being swarmed by fans.”
And he didn’t have to worry about looking like an asshole. He thought this was a fabulous idea.
“Oh, that’s a great thought. I’ll stop by and talk to them, maybe go see one of the little kids’ classes if anybody knows who I am. You think they know who I am?” Evan asked.
How the fuck was he supposed to know? This was fucking New Mexico.
He wasn’t sure there were enough white people here to have hockey fans.
“I’m sure they would. I mean, you’re famous and all.
Maybe Max should go right before he goes home since he’s fixin’ to be famous and his dad is still famous and all. ”
“Maybe we will. That’s a great idea.”
Lord have mercy.
They finally got sat, and that was nice because he felt less like he had to make idiot banter-type talk.
Not that he couldn’t talk; he could talk, but he also didn’t want to have to worry if he slipped up and said something that he didn’t want to be public knowledge. For instance, “Mi’ja is knocked up, and I need the baby daddy to pay for the baby’s insurance.”
That would be such a bad deal.
“So should we get done with business first and then be friendly?”
Sam stared at Evan half a second. “Can I have a cup of coffee first, please? And then yes, but I have not yet had a cup of coffee yet because my daughter doesn’t allow coffee before ten a.m., and I need coffee now.”
“Oh man, what do you do normally?”
“Aye di mi. I have a coffee maker in the barn. Sometimes there’s some hay in it, but that’s okay. I don’t mind so much.”
“God.” Evan shook his head. “That’s nuts, man.” That grin told him Evan was going to tease him about this. A lot. “The things we do for the people we love, huh?”
“God, yes. I do love my— Oh, hey,” Sam said to the server gal. “Coffee as big as my head, please.”
She laughed. “Of course. Coffee for you, too?”
“Please.” Evan studied the menu. “I forget what I got last time.”
“I like the huevos rancheros. Or the blue corn cinnamon pancakes.” Sam loved those silly johnny cakes.
“Huh. I might try those with some eggs and bacon. I have to work out today. Hard. I’ve been slacking.”
“I know all about that, no? It’s all hard, trying to get up off the couch.”
“What kind of workouts do you do?” Evan asked.
Sam shrugged. “I jog a lot. I hate jogging, but there’s a lot of jogging. And there’s lots of… football drills, really. Sharp, quick movements training the twitch muscles. I lift some weights to just do it, but really that comes natural. Jogging? No.”