Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dakota
The Ford pulls out, and the first thing I do is tug the cuff of Spur's flannel shirt down over the gauze on my wrist.
I'm wearing his shirt over my own tank top. Jeans. Boots.
The hat my mother bought me the summer I turned twenty-one is on the seat between us.
Spur drives one-handed, his right hand on the gearshift, his left hand on the wheel.
Rogue is in the back seat with his laptop already open, the screen tilted away from the windshield so the glow doesn't catch on the glass.
The hill country is dark for the first hour.
Spur doesn't talk.
He hasn't talked since we pulled away from the main house, and I know it's not him being cold. It's him being focused.
He drives the way he tattoos. The same calluses on the same hands, the same steady. He'll talk when he's ready.
I look at the dark road outside the passenger window and let him drive.
Somewhere west of San Saba, the sky starts coming up gray. Then orange. Then the kind of pink the hill country goes when the sun's about to clear the eastern ridges.
Spur drives into it without sunglasses on, his jaw set, his hand still on the gearshift between us.
Rogue speaks once from the back. "I cloned the line at the gate. Anything that comes in while we're on the road, I see it before either of you do."
"Yeah," Spur says.
I look at my phone in my lap. No messages.
The unknown number has been quiet since the photo the other day, and the quiet is its own kind of sound.
I tug the cuff over the gauze again.
Spur sees me do it.
He reaches across the console without looking at me and takes my right hand in his—not the marked one, the other one—and holds it on top of my thigh for a long stretch of road. His thumb moves slowly across my knuckles.
He doesn't talk.
I let him have it.
Around mile two hundred I work up the words. "Spur."
"Yeah? How's your wrist holding up under that gauze, baby?"
It takes me a second to realize he's asking after me and not the other way around. "It's fine."
"Sore?"
"A little."
"Tell me if it gets worse."
"I will."
He squeezes my hand once and lets go to shift gears.
* * *
We pull into Abilene close to ten in the morning.
Hampton Inn off the highway because Spur called ahead.
Two adjoining rooms—one for me and Spur, one for Rogue. Spur doesn't ask Rogue if that's all right and Rogue doesn't argue.
We walk Jaeger out of the trailer for stretching and water at the back of the parking lot, and a black F-250 pulls in beside us with a dust trail still hanging behind it.
I see the cut on the driver before I see his face.
Saints. Abilene rocker.
Then Uncle Holt steps out of the truck.
He's six-three the way my father is six-three.
Same dark hair Dad has, more gray in it now than the last time I saw him.
Same blue eyes.
Same way of standing in a parking lot like the parking lot belongs to him until he says otherwise.
"Uncle Holt."
He grins at me—the Lyle grin, the one Pops uses on me in the kitchen when nobody else is watching—and he opens his arms.
I drop Jaeger's lead in Spur's hand and walk straight into him.
"Hey, baby girl."
"Pops didn't tell me you were coming."
"Pops didn't tell me until last night. I drove from Lubbock at two in the morning."
"You drove from Lubbock?"
"Roan's there now. He's got my charter handled till I'm back. Your father called me, and that was the end of the conversation."
I close my eyes against his shoulder for a second.
He smells like the inside of his truck and the cedar soap he's used since I was four years old.
He hugs me the way he always hugs me—full body, both arms, no half-measures, the way Lyle men hug when nobody's around to see.
He pulls back and looks at my face. "You all right?"
"I'm all right."
"You eatin’? You sure don’t look like you been eatin’ enough."
"I'm eating."
"You sleepin’?"
"Some."
He looks past me at Spur and holds out his hand. "Spur."
"Holt."
They shake. Holt holds Spur's hand half a second longer than a handshake. Then he looks at me again. "Your father said you'd have new ink."
I tug the cuff of Spur's flannel down over the gauze without thinking.
Holt doesn't push it.
He smiles at me—the same smile, softer this time. "Show me when you're ready, Dakota. Not before."
I almost cry right there in the parking lot. I don't.
Behind Uncle Holt are two other patched men who get out of the back seat of the F-250.
Both Abilene.
One older—fifty, gray beard, the calm of a man who's been doing this his whole life.
One younger—late twenties, hat pulled low.
"Wells," Holt says, gesturing to the older one. "My VP. Tread. My Sergeant at Arms."
Wells touches the brim of his hat at me. "Ma'am."
"Hey."
Tread nods and doesn't speak.
"They're sitting on the trailer and the warm-up rail till you ride," Holt tells me. "I'm at the rail with Spur. Phantom's orders."
"Pops's orders?"
"Yep."
I can't help the small laugh that comes out of me.
I haven't laughed since the other day. It feels strange in my chest.
Spur is watching me with his hand still on Jaeger's lead. He sees the laugh land. He doesn't say anything.
Holt looks at Spur. "Lunch?"
"She always eats Whataburger before a qualifier."
"Yeah she does. Her mother used to make her eat one before junior rodeo. It's in the blood."
Holt looks at me. "Whataburger?"
"Whataburger."
"Get in. I'm driving."
We end up in a back booth at the Whataburger across from the Hampton—Holt across from me, Spur next to me, Rogue at the end with his laptop open beside his food and Wells at the booth behind us watching the parking lot.
Uncle Holt asks me about Jaeger first.
Always Jaeger first—that's how it's been since I was twelve and Pops gave me my first horse.
Uncle Holt drove down from Lubbock on a Saturday to see him.
Uncle Holt always asks about the horse before he asks about the rider.
I tell him about Jaeger's stride this season. About the slow turn we've been working on. About the run in Stephenville last week.
He listens the way he always listens—head tilted slightly, eyes on me, not eating until I'm finished.
Then he asks me about the run. About the dirt at the Stephenville fairgrounds. About my second-barrel turn.
It's the first conversation I've had since earlier this week that hasn't been about the fucking creeper stalking me, and I let myself sit in it.
Halfway through my burger Holt looks at Spur. "How long have you been with my niece, son?"
"A few days, Holt.”
My uncle cracks up. "A few days?"
"Yes."
He raises his brows. "That's news that took its time getting to me."
I interject. "Pops told you last night, didn’t he?"
"Yeah he did. But he left out the good part." Holt looks at me. "How long have you been with him, baby girl?"
"A few days, Uncle Holt."
"Truthfully?"
"In my head? Years."
He looks at me for a long time. "Yeah. I know."
"You knew?"
"Honey, every man in this family knew you’d fall for a bastard in the club, except your father. Deep down he probably knew and he was just hoping he was wrong."
I laugh. The second time today. It feels less strange in my chest now.
Holt looks at Spur. "You treatin’ her right?"
"I'm trying, Holt."
"You'll keep trying."
"Yes, Holt."
"And you understand if you don't, your Prez isn't the only Lyle you'll be answering to."
"I understand."
Uncle Holt nods once and that's it. The conversation is done. He goes back to chowing down on his burger.
Spur's hand finds my thigh under the booth and stays there.
* * *
We drive to the fairgrounds at one.
Uncle Holt's F-250 in front of my Ford because he's driving lead now.
Wells and Tread are in his back seat, and the Abilene chapter has us in a moving box on the highway from the Hampton to the fairgrounds.
I tack Jaeger up at the back of the trailer.
Holt is twenty feet off, leaning against his F-250, watching the lane.
Wells is at the corner of the trailer pad.
Tread is at the warm-up pen rail.
Spur is at the saddle stand with me.
I work Jaeger easily for forty minutes in the warm-up pen.
He's loose, awake. Ears doing the thing they do before a run.
Brynn pulls up next to me at the rail when I come off. "Hey, baby girl."
"Hey."
She looks at me for a long second. "How you doin'?"
"I'm doin'."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She doesn't push. Just leans on the rail beside me with her arms folded the way she does when she's about to say something hard. "I heard about the photos."
"How?"
"Cassidy. Two girls in the trailer pad got texts last night. Older guy was askin' around for your schedule. Said he was a journalist doing a piece on rodeo women. Forties or fifties. Smoked through the whole conversation."
I take it in.
"Honey?"
"Yeah."
"I’m gonna be honest here. I'm scared for you."
I look at her. Brynn doesn't say things like that.
Brynn drinks Crown, laughs loud, and tells me to put on lipstick before runs.
"You got someone with you?" she asks.
"My man and Rogue. My uncle. Some guys from the Abilene charter."
She looks past me at Uncle Holt's F-250 and sees the cut. Sees Wells at the trailer pad. Sees Tread at the rail.
Her shoulders drop an inch and she lets out a breath she's been holding since I came off Jaeger. "Good."
"Brynn."
"Yeah?"
"I'm okay."
"You're not. But you will be."
She looks at my cuff where the gauze is barely showing. "That from your man?"
"Yeah."
"What's it say?"
"His nickname."
She closes her eyes for a second and opens them, smiling wide. "You finally did it."
"Yeah."
"Honey, I'm gonna cry at this fence, and I haven't cried at a fence in God knows how long."
I laugh. "Don't cry, Brynn."
"I'm gonna. Just a little. Then I'm gonna go ride my run and you're gonna go ride yours, and after this is all over you're gonna call me from a hotel room and tell me what his hands felt like."
"I will."
She squeezes my shoulder once and walks back to her own horse at the far end of the pen.
I do my pre-ride check at the saddle stand the way I always do.
Topside of the saddle. Horn. Cantle. Skirts. Latigo.