Chapter Twenty-one
“Liz! Liz?”
Liz poked her head out of the tack room as Brady strode down the aisle, his chaps slung over his shoulder, a huge grin on his face.
“Don’t yell in my stable, Brady West!” she scolded, then noticed the sparkle in his eyes. He was practically vibrating. “Why are you so damned happy?”
“I convinced Tan to go for a ride,” Brady replied as he reached her.
“Sourpuss could do with a gallop. So?” she replied.
“Jake’s comin’ too.”
“Are you trying to kill one or both of them?” Liz asked, but grinned as well.
Brady’s mischievous joy was hard to ignore as he followed Liz back into the tack room and beelined for one of the far tack trunks that held Brett’s personal gear, and began rummaging through it.
He came up with an old pair of dark-brown chaps, the leather polished to a shine from years of use.
He laid them on the bench, then went back in and found a beat-up old pair of Brett’s gloves, still bent and darkened in spots from use.
He examined them critically, and threw them on top of the chaps.
“Jake wanted to go out on a ride with Tan?” Liz asked, wondering if using his dad’s old gear would be difficult for Jake, if he found out.
She wasn’t sure if the gloves would fit him; Brett’s hands in the past couple of years had gotten gnarly with arthritis and he’d needed a wider size.
The chaps should since he and Jake were really similar in height, and the belt was generously studded with extra holes to cinch it in.
The thought of Jake in chaps made her flush with heat, and she turned from her brother in case she gave away what she was thinking about. They’d frame Jake’s ass perfectly.
“Nope. Taking Jake out to show him the place. Tan came into the office while we were talkin’. I asked him on impulse and he, well, he said yes.”
Liz whistled.
“A ride could be just what we all need,” she said quietly.
She pulled a hatbox off the high shelf over the bridle rack and retrieved one of Brett’s old felt cattleman hats from the stack inside.
It was a dark tan with a black band, had only seen a few wears, and wasn’t stained with sweat like some of the others.
The hats were just sitting up here, not being worn, and Liz thought maybe it was time to go through all of it and figure out what to do with it.
Reminders of Brett were more complex now, with everything that had happened, and what Jake had talked about with her.
She looked at it, thumbing a bit of dust off one part of the crown, reminding herself that it was just a hat, nothing more.
“He’ll need this or he’ll burn to a crisp,” she remarked, setting it beside the chaps and gloves. “Who should we put him on?”
“Tan said to take Dolly,” Brady quipped, and they looked at one another.
“Oh, hell no. He didn’t.”
The two of them were still laughing when Tanner strode in, his chaps already zipped, beat-up felt hat identical to the one she’d picked for Jake in his hand, a scowl on his face.
“I’m taking Chip,” he muttered, and hefted a saddle up by the horn. “Brady, you taking Zane?”
“Yeah,” Brady replied, the levity gone like a vacuum had sucked all the air out of the room, and turned to gather his tack.
Liz pulled Chip’s bridle off the wall and wordlessly handed it to Tanner, watching him for any sign that this was not a good idea.
His temper was so razor-thin right now that any bobble might just do him in, and even though he’d never hurt a horse, he’d certainly fight with one if his hackles were up.
Chip was as solid as they came, and knew his rider well, but lately nobody could put a guess on the stress levels bombing around inside Tanner.
She had to try and poke through the storm he was carrying around before he got on a horse, especially if he and Jake pushed each other’s buttons again.
“Tan,” she said quietly as he turned to leave.
“What?” he growled curtly, his jaw flexing, his eyes snapping.
“Just stop for a hot second. You’re like a bear with a burr up its butt. What’s going on?”
Brady slid past them with his saddle and bridle, meeting Liz’s eyes. She nodded at him, and he quirked an eyebrow but left them alone. She’d see if Tanner would tell her what he was pissed about now, maybe it would lessen the bowstring-tight tension she could see in his shoulders.
“Nothin’.”
“Bullshit.”
He sighed and turned to her. She saw it then. The exhaustion, the hurt, the absolute rock bottom he was facing. The gut twist of helplessness hit her, because she didn’t know what to do with that.
He’d dusted it up with Jake, and they weren’t even talking to one another now. There had been no word from Frank. He was hating every moment of this exile imposed on him by a dead man he’d worshipped his whole life, and his hands were tied behind his back, his control gone.
“You gotta figure out how to be good with all this, Tan. It’s eating you alive,” was what she finally decided to say, hoping it wouldn’t blow his fuse.
“It’s not that, I was in town and saw—”
A horse kicked a stall and squealed just outside the tack room, and he stopped talking, instinct taking over to listen in case they needed to deal with it. When there was no resulting ruckus, Tanner frowned, not finishing his sentence.
“And saw what, Tan? Is everything okay?” Liz prodded.
He didn’t answer her, just stood there, bridle in his hands, eyes focused out the tiny window in the tack room that faced the sand ring.
His jaw flexed, his face went hard with what Liz assumed was the grief that was consuming him, and she braced for impact.
The clock on the wall ticked into the silence of the room.
“You comin’ on this ride too?” he finally replied, deflecting her question, his jaw clenched tightly. “The more eyes we have on City Boy, the less likely we’ll be pickin’ him out of the dirt.”
“I’ll set him on Sandy. She can keep up to our horses, and she’s as safe as they come.”
“Good. Who are you taking?”
“Finnegan. I haven’t gotten on him in a few days. He could use it.”
A sound of agreement came from Tanner before he stalked out of the room and she moved off to heft her own saddle, laying Finnegan’s bridle over the seat.
Her mind was already on the task of tacking up two horses quickly, deciding which saddle would be best for Jake.
Brett had an old working saddle he used to ride the fence lines, and after depositing her saddle on the rack in front of Finnegan’s stall, she went back and pulled the dust cover from it, eyeing the leather critically.
It was still in great shape and would fit Sandy’s long back perfectly.
A hand touched her, and she turned back to see Tanner, an apologetic look on his face, his saddle hefted up on one shoulder.
“I . . . damn it, Lizzie. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take my shit out on you. I—” he started, and swallowed hard, his eyes leaving her to look at the ground, then closing. She put her hand on his.
“You don’t have to answer my question, Tan. I’m just worried about you.”
He let his hand slip away from her. There. She’d said enough to make his gears turn, maybe. She yanked her chaps off her peg near the door, and as she was zipping them up, prayed it would be a nudge in the right direction.
* * *
“I feel ridiculous in these!” Jake hissed at her as he stood on one side of Sandy, tugging on the edges of the chaps she had handed him when he’d walked into the barn. She eyed him critically and did up the buckle another hole at the back.
“That should help,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said. “They’re heavy across my hip bones.”
“You’ll get used to them, and they’re less heavy once you’re in the saddle. Better than your jeans riding up and rubbing a blister on your shin,” Liz replied.
“Still feel ridiculous,” he muttered, and picked up a brush, sliding it over Sandy, who was in the cross-ties beside them.
Jake didn’t look ridiculous, because the chaps fit him like they were his, the leather hitting him in just the right spot on the back of his thighs.
She had been right, his ass—which was already superb—looked even better this way.
With a long sleeve Henley shirt and his long legs covered in the polished brown leather, he looked every inch like his brothers, even though he’d never ranched a day in his life.
She’d been right that first day on the porch.
He looked the part easy, given his genes.
Moving around the horse, Liz met his eyes over its back, and she winked at him. “I think you look hot.”
He let out a quiet rumbling hmmm, and continued to brush Sandy down, his big hands expertly flicking the dirt off her coat, like he’d done it a thousand times.
He stopped suddenly, leaned over Sandy’s rump, and caught her eye again, his own sparkling with mischief. Her stomach fluttered, because he truly was devastatingly handsome when he was relaxed and happy, the way he was now.
“So I should wear them later? Maybe without the jeans?” he quipped, and then went back to brushing.
“Jake! Jesus,” she hissed back, heat flaming over her cheeks, which were now likely the color of a tomato. “Not now.”
He stepped around Sandy, dropping the brush back into the box on the wall, and as he passed her, he pulled her over to him, their bodies fitting against each other perfectly.
His hand sliding dangerously up her back made her want to forget about the ride and just take him home, and his breath on her neck made her wish he’d pin her to the wall and—
“Yes, now,” he said, and his lips found her pulse point, slowly sliding over her skin.
She fisted his shirt. “If you keep this up, we won’t get on the horses.” It was going to be hard to concentrate if he didn’t let her go.
“I keep thinkin’ about last night,” he murmured in her ear, his other hand now pulling her hips in closer to him, their belt buckles clinking. Then he abruptly let go and walked over to the saddle rack, pulling up the saddle blanket resting on top of the saddle.