by Maisey Yates
“Dane...”
Dane ground his teeth together. The look of pity on his sister’s face bothered him more than any of the physical pain in his body ever could. That look like he might be out of touch. Like she might know exactly what was happening with his bones, better than he did.
“It’ll be fine.” No argument was made, because his tone had left no room for one. Lindy could be fierce, no denying it. But they were cut from the same stubborn-ass cloth, and he knew his sister knew well enough when there wasn’t going to be a discussion.
“Okay,” she said, turning away again. “It’s just temporary.”
Because ever since he’d picked himself up off the ground after watching his dad drive off into the distance, he’d made a decision. A decision that he’d get what he wanted, come hell or high water. And in all the years since it had been true. From football glory in high school to the rodeo later on.
Bright lights and on TV, and look at him now, Dad.
Dammit all, this wouldn’t be any different.
CHAPTER TWO
DANE MANAGED TO get himself down to Get Out of Dodge and reporting for duty by 6:00 a.m. It was no mean feat. His bones did not like to work when it was that cold out. Which just pissed him off. He didn’t know what to do with a body that wouldn’t bend to his will. He wasn’t used to that. Hell no.
When he had decided that he wanted to train to be a bull rider, he’d done it. Whatever he wanted to do, he’d always been able to. From playing football in high school, to transitioning to rodeo work.
It was one of the very few things in the world he could control. He wasn’t made for studying, was never going to get the kind of grades that would have earned him a scholarship to get into college. He was never going to be able to change his stars that way.
But physically, physically he had been able to achieve whatever he wanted.
He’d been able to excel.
He’d been able to seduce.
His body was the most valuable tool that he possessed.
And now it was broken.
But he was at work. And he was on time. It was the most insultingly simple goal that he ever set in his life.
Still, he walked into the mess hall, ignoring the shooting pain in his leg, and looked around. His sister and Wyatt weren’t there, but Wyatt’s brother Grant and his fiancée, McKenna, were there, as was Luke Hollister, surprisingly. Luke had bought his own ranch more than a year ago, and typically didn’t put work in at Get Out of Dodge anymore. Though, he had grown up on the ranch, and was a part of the Dodge family, not by blood, but by choice. So, it wasn’t too surprising, Dane supposed.
He tipped his hat and began to walk toward the table. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” Grant said, grinning.
It was a good thing to see Grant Dodge smile. And had been unusual for a long damned time. After he lost his wife years ago, he’d settled into a pretty firm, serious space. But since McKenna, that had changed.
Dane had never put much stock in the idea of romance, or long-term relationships. But he couldn’t deny that Lindy’s marriage to Wyatt had changed her for good. And he also couldn’t deny that Grant meeting McKenna had changed some things in his life.
Of course, he couldn’t ignore the fact that it was their first long-term relationships that had broken them to begin with.
That about said it all, Dane figured.
He walked over to get himself a cup of coffee, and the door opened behind him.
In came Bennett—Grant and Wyatt’s younger brother—his wife, Kaylee, and their son, Dallas.
Now, the only person that was missing was Jamie Dodge, the youngest, and the only girl.
“What’s going on?”
He didn’t expect to see Luke or Bennett here at the start of a workday. Much less, Bennett’s entire clan.
“We have a big project going on today,” Grant said. “Completely refencing the south pasture. Which means all hands on deck.”
“Great,” Dane said.
He was eager to get moving, and if moving meant a huge-ass project, all the better.
He wondered if he should be taking pain pills like Bea had suggested. But if he had done that, he wouldn’t have been able to drive himself. And what was he going to do? Limp down to Bea’s cabin at the crack of dawn and ask her to drive him like he was a dependent?
Already, Bea was taking care of him to a degree he found uncomfortable, and if it were anyone else he would have told them to back off.
But Bea was not anyone else. Bea was her own sort of creature. Strong and stubborn, all wrapped in sunshine. Sometimes all that light hurt his eyes. And he did his fair share of growling at her. But she just shined him on, cheerfully going about his care and keeping.
When she wasn’t lecturing him.
He poured himself a black coffee and walked as straight as he could over to the table, ignoring the pain that was...everywhere.
His every movement seemed to list his extensive injuries, loud and clear. The broken femur that had left his thigh open, his artery pouring blood onto the arena dirt. The shattered knee that was full of bolts and screws. Broken ribs that had taken a shot at his liver and left it bruised. Severe concussion. The hoof he’d taken to the cheek that had laid his face open.
The bull had basically used him as a welcome mat, wiping his feet all the hell over him, and stomping a few times for good measure.
That was one of the more shocking things about it. He’d had...dammit, hundreds of rides, where nothing happened.
He’d been thrown before. He’d been stomped before, it just hadn’t resulted in any serious injuries. So it was a crazy-ass thing that all it had taken was one throw that had gone wrong. One bull that refused to be lured by the bullfighters.
And he’d gone all out on Dane.
And left him with this...shell that he walked around in. It didn’t feel like him. In his head, he was Dane Parker, champion bull rider. But this was not Dane Parker’s body. Hell no.
There was breakfast, and the small talk was kept to a minimum. Dane was grateful for the eggs and bacon. Frankly, he was not eating like this at the house. But he didn’t want to tell Lindy that. Basically, he didn’t want to complain about anything, because he didn’t want anyone babysitting him. And if sometimes he got up and drank beer for breakfast...that was his business. He was taking care of himself, and that meant he would do it how he saw fit.
But the bacon...that was welcome.
Bea would come and cook for him. He knew that.
He didn’t want Bea to come and cook for him.
She already doted on him, and as Lindy had put it, it was much like she was caring for any other wounded creature. Well, really, it was like having another sister right there.
During breakfast, Wyatt and Lindy walked into the mess hall, all smiles and holding hands. Honestly, if he weren’t so happy for his sister he might gag.
“Too good to eat with the riffraff?” Dane asked.
“We have an agreement,” Wyatt said. “I have to cook her breakfast. I can’t pawn it off.”
“He has to cook bacon for me. It has to be his bacon.”
“Stop there,” Dane said. “This is edging into double entendre territory, and I don’t want any part of that. I am a wounded man. Weak. Compromised. That could kill me.”
Lindy smiled sweetly. “If you’re too weak, then perhaps you shouldn’t work today.”
He didn’t respond to that. He just treated her to a look that would have made lesser men and beasts tremble. But Lindy was neither man nor beast, and she certainly didn’t tremble beneath the angry gaze of her younger brother.
Jamie showed up a while later, and after they finished breakfast, they piled into a couple of different trucks, heading out toward the south pasture. His every attempt at grabbing a box of tools, or roll of
fencing, was met by someone else grabbing it from right in front of him.
By the time lunch rolled around, he didn’t know what pissed him off more, the fact that he was relegated to doing fiddly wire work, attaching the fence to the posts, or the fact that it actually hurt to do such menial work.
Dane opened up a cooler and produced a sandwich, wrapped up tight in plastic wrap, and a can of Coke and sat down as gingerly as he could on the tailgate. Wyatt sat across from him, on the other open tailgate, while Bennett stood, Dallas sat in the dirt alongside Luke and Jamie crouched against the fence line, hunched over her sandwich like a feral animal on a kill.
“You going to let me do some work?” he asked, directing that at Wyatt, keeping his tone low.
“You’re working,” Wyatt said.
“I’m hardly doing anything,” Dane said, keeping his tone conversational. “And you know it.”
“I have to keep your sister from killing me,” Wyatt said, as if that was an explanation of some kind. “That’s my ultimate goal in life. You know, along with keeping her happy.”
“I appreciate that,” Dane responded. “But she’s not my keeper. And neither are you.”
“There’s no harm in going easy on yourself when you’ve had an injury. You were in a wheelchair a couple of months ago. Be reasonable about what you can expect from yourself right now.”
“Bullshit. You would be reasonable if this were you?” Dane ignored his aches and pains and took a bite of his sandwich.
“Hell no. You and I both know that rodeo riders aren’t built for reason. But I’m not in your position. And that means that I get to hand down advice from on high.”
“I don’t want your advice.”
“We’re brothers,” Wyatt said, throwing the word around easily. “That means I have some advice to give, and you should listen.”
Dane wanted to throw a punch, but right about now he knew he’d just get his ass beat. So he opted for being a total and complete jerk. “You’re not the first brother I’ve had by marriage, Wyatt. I didn’t care much for the first one. Don’t make me disown you too.”
Wyatt chuckled, taking a bite of his own sandwich. “You won’t. You won’t because I’m good to your sister, and you know it.”
“Sure. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hate you.”
“You won’t.”
“It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the job,” he said. “But I don’t need you to babysit me. I can do more than just hammer grommets into the wire.”
Wyatt shrugged and took another bite of the sandwich. “If you feel great at the end of today, then I’ll listen to you next time. But for now, we’re going to do it my way. Because this is the thing, Dane, if you don’t want me to act like your brother, then I’m going to act like your boss. And that means regardless of the reason that I’ve assigned you a certain task, you have to do it.”
“Motherfucker,” Dane said.
Wyatt cleared his throat. “Sister.”
Dane shot him an evil look. “I will kill you.”
“Then you won’t have a job, and your sister will be widowed. She’ll be mad.”
“She’d get over it.”
A companionable silence settled between them. Somehow, threats of grievous injury had made things not quite so tense. He didn’t know how that worked. Only that it did.
Or maybe it wasn’t the threats. Maybe it was the surroundings. The vivid green of the pasture, fading into the rich grove of evergreens that had claimed space on the sides of the imposing mountains that stood sentry around the ranch.
“How are things?” Dane asked. “I mean, how does she like living here?”
“She seems to like it. I do have to make the bacon though. You could always ask her yourself.”
“Yeah.” But if he asked Lindy that, Lindy would ask how he was doing. And she would get that look on her face. And however much he thought Wyatt managing his activities was a load of crap, it would only be worse if Lindy was hanging around, or had any reason to get extra concerned.
“It was tough,” Wyatt said suddenly. “Accepting that it was time for me to retire. But, there was just a point where...I didn’t think my body could handle being rattled around one more time. I was so damn jacked up that there was just... Hell, man. I was just about done. I knew that if I got jarred one more time I wasn’t going to be able to walk straight for the rest of forever. I didn’t like having to accept that. You spend all those years throwing yourself around on the back of those animals and telling yourself you’re invincible. Having to face the fact that you’re just a guy in his thirties is a bummer.”
“We’re not the same,” Dane said. “Because I probably already won’t walk straight ever again. But that doesn’t mean I can’t ride. Hell, if I can get back on, at this point, there is no reason not to. I’m screwed. I’m not walking away from this job without permanent damage. Might as well go all in.”
“You think you can?”
“Why the hell not?”
“That was a bad accident,” Wyatt said, as if Dane wasn’t sitting there made of the pain from that accident.
“Yeah, no kidding. But you know what else? I don’t have to walk straight to be able to ride. So, I figure... Give it some time. Maybe even a whole year...”
Wyatt sighed. “Okay. Let’s start with this. Let’s start with the fence. If you feel fine at the end of the day I’ll back off.”
“Good.”
“And then you can get back to me tomorrow and tell you how you actually feel. And we’ll make a new plan from there.”
Wyatt shoved the last bit of his sandwich into his mouth and brushed his hands off on his jeans. It took every last ounce of Dane’s strength not to flip his brother-in-law the middle finger.
Wyatt thought because he was a couple of years older than him that he knew everything. But he didn’t know how stubborn Dane was, not yet. But he would.
Hell yeah, he would.
* * *
BEA RETURNED FROM her shift at Valley Veterinary with a mission. Bennett Dodge, her boss, had told her he’d found out about a bunch of chickens that needed a place to stay, and Bea was more than willing to accommodate if she could.
Of course, when she walked into her house, she realized that Evan, her increasingly chubby raccoon, had managed to jimmy the window to her living area open and slip his fat-bottomed self inside, and she could only cringe at the horror she knew might await her.
Her little cabin was cozy, and as neat as it could be, considering it was a very small space that had to contain supplies both for her and her eclectic and ever-rotating array of animals.
But this particular animal was...well, his own animal.
There were a few open cabinets, and some Cheerios on the floor, along with a neatly shredded box. But it was what she might find in her bedroom that truly frightened her.
Evan had a particular fondness for underwear.
And if Evan could steal her entire collection of panties, Evan would. The little raccoon she had rescued all those months ago had seemed benign then. But he was a giant pain in the butt now.
Still, she loved him, and she wouldn’t ever have things any different. It was just...
Evan in her house unsupervised was never the ideal scenario.
She stepped around the Cheerios, crunching a couple under her feet as she stepped through the small kitchen and living area. Then she pushed open her bedroom door the rest of the way. “Evan,” she hissed.
There was no movement, and no response, but the drawer to her dresser was partway open.
“Evan!”
She heard a rustling sound, and she gritted her teeth, walking over to her closet and pulling the door open. There she discovered Evan, with a stash of Cheerios and two pairs of underwear.
“You’re a naughty raccoon, Evan,” she said, reaching down and stealing h
er panties back. She would have to take them over to the main house with the rest of her laundry. She loved animals, but even she had some limits. And, wearing underwear that had been handled by a raccoon was that limit.
Evan was completely unashamed, and he remained where he was in her closet, happily shoving Cheerios into his whiskered face. He paused just long enough to look up at Bea, his nose twitching.
“I hope you think about what you’ve done,” she said, shaking her head and reaching down, scooping him up and depositing him back in the main area of her house, closing her bedroom door behind her. Evan wobbled over to the Cheerios on the floor, and she decided that she was just going to have to give up that battle. The cereal was the raccoon’s now. There would be no reclaiming it.
She opened up her fridge and found the prepared portion of food that she had for Evan—today it was gut-loaded crickets—setting it down on the floor in his spot. In defiance of her, he continued to eat the Cheerios until none remained.
“It does not have as much nutrition as your actual food. I hope you know.”
He was unimpressed.
“You’re supposed to be on a special diet,” she said. “Balance, Evan!”
He ignored her, sniffing the ground and licking up crumbs.
She sighed and went across the room to look at her terrariums. The blue-bellied skink she had found looking poorly a couple of weeks ago seemed fine now, and she couldn’t really figure out what had been wrong with him. But rest and access to food seemed to have solved most of his issues. Pretty soon, she would go ahead and release him in some wetlands.
She didn’t have as many animals right now as she liked to, didn’t have as many as she ultimately hoped to have someday.
She missed Mabel terribly sometimes. The old dog had been her constant companion from the time she was sixteen. A balm for her terrible loneliness from being the odd one out in her family. The weird girl at school. Having lost the one person she’d thought might understand her.
But given the amount of time she spent working, plus, at this point, having Evan, there was just no real fair way to have a dog in her life at the moment.
