by Jillian Neal
They spoke the last lines together. “Hold onto life even if it is easier to let it go. Hold onto my hand even if I have gone away from you.”
“Tell me about your grandmother, sweetheart. I want to know everything about you, too.”
“Thought you wanted to hear how I ended up with Brant?” She gave him a sweet grin that he swore could warm the coldest Nebraskan winter night.
“I want to hear it all. We got nothing but time, so start at the beginning.”
“I don’t really like the beginning.”
“Start there anyway.”
Giving him her customary eye roll, she still complied. “I guess this will eventually get us to Brant, so fine. My mom was a buckle bunny back in the day.” She all but gagged, and Austin kept his eyes on the road giving no reaction other than a nod. “My dad started out riding the New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma circuits. He kept Mom up in an apartment in Santa Fe. She and my grandma didn’t get along. She didn’t like the reservation and didn’t want to do things the old ways. I kind of get that I guess. After she got pregnant with me, Dad kept paying for the apartment but didn’t really want me, so he stopped coming around after I was born.”
“Summer, darlin’, I am so sorry.” Austin redacted his former admiration of Mitchum Sanchez.
“Don’t be. Life’s not fair or whatever. Anyway, when I was about two, Mama decided she was done waiting on hand-outs from Mitchum. She got herself a job as a nanny on the McCallister’s Ranch in Bernalillo. They had a huge operation and a bunch of youngins, four brothers’ worth of kids. I used to like my mom. I really did. It’s just that she was always more interested in being my friend instead of my mom. Does that make sense?”
“She tell you to marry Brant for his money?”
“Mmm hmm,” came out with a long sigh.
“Makes perfect sense. Keep going.”
“Ray McCallister, the oldest McCallister brother, used to get really mad that my dad never came to see me. He got mom to file for more child support and said Mitchum should have visitation, since I was his. So, for two weeks every summer and two weeks in December I got shipped off to wherever Mitchum was riding. He’d leave me with sitters or the women he was shacking up with at the time. I never really saw him much, and when I was fifteen, I refused to see him anymore. He didn’t even care. He never even called. He just asked his lawyer if that meant he still had to pay child support. I was so pissed, and I just never could get over it. I’d come up riding the McCallister’s horses most of the year, except when I was visiting the reservation. One day, Ray saw me riding and asked if I’d like to learn to barrel race. He said I was that good, even got me my own horse, Vixen. God, I loved that horse. My calico pony that could fly faster than lightning. I was convinced Vixen was the only thing in the world that got me, that moved as fast I always wanted to. Ray paid for me to take lessons, and sticking it to Mitchum drove me. I planned it all perfectly. Vixen and I practiced night and day from my fifteenth birthday ‘til I was nineteen, and I was good enough to beat most anyone else.
“Mitchum never saw me coming. That rodeo in Santa Fe where he was showing off his belt he had no idea I was gonna ride. Didn’t even know I’d started competing. I was so sure I’d stick it to him for not loving me. Prove my worth on horseback. I was a dumbass teenager, too, I guess.”
“He deserved a hell of a lot worse than an amazing daughter that could turn and burn, honey.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t think so. The papers went wild with his illegitimate daughter that he’d ignored her whole life riding better than he ever hoped to. The more titles I won, the worse he looked. Family values are pretty important to most ranch families. He stopped getting asked to come show off his buckles. They didn’t want a dead-beat dad representing them. There are too many cowboys that do right by their families to need one like that. He was so pissed, and that made me deliriously happy, or I told myself it did, anyway.
“One day he called me up and offered to send me to college if I’d stop riding. I laughed at him. Told him unless he could come up with some college that had a major in Barrel Racing, he could kiss my ass. All in the world I wanted to do was ride Vixen and flirt with the sweet cowboys at the shows.”
Austin grunted his annoyance at that thought, making her laugh.
“Anyway, about a week before my twenty-fourth birthday, he called me up and apologized. Said he was sorry about not coming to see me more and for being so mad about me riding. Said he was just jealous, and told me about the throat cancer. He’d chewed since he was ten, so I wasn’t surprised, but for some reason the way he sounded scared me. He asked if I’d fly out to Dallas to visit him where he was getting treatments. He said he had a surprise for me, one that would help me with racing. Mama said I should go.” She shrugged. Austin’s stomach turned. Dallas and Mitchum with a plan. Didn’t take a genius to figure out where this had landed her.
“I showed up at the treatment facility thing, sat with him while he got chemo. I’d never seen him look weak before, and I felt so guilty for what I’d done to him. He wanted to go out to eat the next night with some friends of his he wanted me to meet. Brant and his daddy bought us dinner and offered to let me and Vixen come to their ranch to train. Said they could get me in better venues ‘cause they were stock contractors and knew people. I was so stupid. Brant’s daddy treated him like an idiot all through dinner. Said he was nothing more than a screw-up right to his face in front of us. I felt horrible for him. Even Mitch never spoke to me like that. Brant asked if I wanted to go get a drink later that night. He really wasn’t so bad until his daddy put him over the stock contracts and he got so desperate to please his old man he forgot who he was, if he ever really knew.
“Mitch was in on it the whole time. Brant and I hooked up a few times. I ended up pregnant. Obviously, I couldn’t ride anymore. His parents insisted on a wedding. I refused. Mitch said his biggest regret was not seeing me grow up and being there for me, and that if I thought I could possibly make it with Brant I ought to do it for the baby. Mama said I ought to marry him for his money and the big old house his daddy gave us. Said I could still ride every day after I had the baby. That’s all I ever wanted to do, so what was the difference? Only, the day we got back from our honeymoon, I found out his daddy had sold Vixen.” She shivered in her seat, and Austin fought not to turn around, drive to Dallas, and beat the shit out of Brant Preston Sr.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Do you know where she is now?” He’d get her the horse back if it took all of his winnings.
“Yeah … a glue factory.”
Austin shook his head, unable to believe what she’d been through.
“Mr. Preston got more and more demanding when the bulls Brant was supplying the rodeo weren’t performing well. Brant started drinking. Kept coming home drunk and mouthing off about his mistresses. I’d catch him out in town with bunnies. I didn’t really care until he brought one to our house. I cussed both of ‘um out, smacked Brant upside the head, but he hit me in the stomach. That was it. I wasn’t gonna let my baby live with a daddy like that. I filed for divorce in my second trimester and moved out to the reservation with my grandmother. She took care of me the whole time I was pregnant.
“Brant’s mama was furious with the divorce agreement. They didn’t get to see J.J. but for two weeks in the summertime at my choosing because he’d been abusive. His daddy’s lawyers got a judge to rewrite the custody documents where we went back and forth week after week. If I missed a week, I automatically lost him. It’s been hell like this for the last six months. The next trial is supposed to be in September. My lawyer thinks she can get it back to the way it was, with Brant only getting him in the summer. I hope she can.”
“Summer, if you need better lawyers, more lawyers, anything at all, I want to help. I’ve got plenty of money. Let me do something worthwhile with it, please.”
“I think my lawyer can handle it. I’ll know more closer to the trial.”
“Wait, you said M
itchum was in on it. He told Brant to knock you up?”
“In one of our huge blow-ups that pretty much happened every damn day, Brant shouted that he should have never listened to my daddy.”
“I asked him what the hell that was supposed to mean, and he came right out with the fact that Mitchum told him to keep forgetting the condoms. Didn’t really occur to me until right then that good ol’ Mitchum had up and started making rodeo appearances again now that I couldn’t ride. That was during the few months where his treatments worked and he got stronger.” She shook her head.
“My God, Summer, honey, I want to beat the shit out of the whole lot of ‘um for you. I’ve a good mind to dig your daddy up and kill him again.”
Her laughter was distant and hollowed. “Yeah, I’ve had that thought more than a time or two, but I got J.J., so the whole stupid disaster is kind of worth it, just so long as I get to keep him. That’s all I really deserve, anyway.”
“No, it isn’t all you deserve, and I’m gonna prove that to you. You deserve to be worshipped, taken care of, and loved. You deserve to be able to ride every damn day if that’s what you want, and a home, a place to call your own. You deserve a real man, not somebody’s daddy’s personal ass-wipe.”
She studied him for several long moments. “Yeah, maybe, but it’s not your job to save me, Austin. Mitchum, and Brant, and his daddy aren’t your fault, and I don’t need anyone’s help.”
“I don’t think you need me to save you, Summer, but know this: if I can help you, it would be my privilege, my honor, and everyone needs help sometime.”
“Thanks. Can we talk about something else? Thinking about the trial makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Sure, baby. Anything you want.”
“Tell me about your family or about Pleasant Glen. I like knowing people that had normal childhoods. Makes me feel like maybe at least J.J. has a chance at one.”
“Coming up in the Glen was great for the most part. My family has a few black sheep, too. It wasn’t all idyllic. I have an uncle that was an abusive alcoholic. My cousin Brock’s dad. My old man and my grandpa ran him off the ranch. Brock’s life kind of went off the rails a little. He made something of himself though. Came back and took over his part of the ranch. Married Hope last fall. They’ve got a kid on the way. My dad and my granddad and my great granddad, all my great-uncles, every Camden before Brock’s daddy was a hero, just like the kind you said you wanted. Salt of the earth kind of men. Kind of guy I hope to be someday.
“I have two older brothers and two younger sisters. I’m right in the middle. Luke and Holly, the oldest and the youngest, are the only two that went to school. Rest of us just want to be ranchers. Holl’s working on her doctorate in Psychology at State now. Swears she’s leaving the Glen and setting up shop in Lincoln or somewhere you don’t have to drive through ten fences just to get to a paved road. That’s what she’s always telling us. Luke got a master’s degree in Veterinary Medicine, but he didn’t stay to finish the doctorate portion. He plays vet for the Glen since he knows more than anybody living there does, but mostly he’s a cowboy.
“Grant owns part of the ranch and a few corn fields, as well. Swears the money’s in the corn, but he runs a thousand head of cattle every year, too, so we’re not real convinced. My sister Natalie got pissed when my dad gave Brock his daddy’s portion of the ranch because he hadn’t been there to work it with all of us. She gets that way. I don’t know why. It ain’t like she don’t know what Brock went through because of my uncle. Anyway, she has a ton of acreage just like we all do. We all work it together, though.
“I grew up just like everyone else I knew. Riding horses, young rodeo, learning to pray right about the time report cards were due out, drinking whatever our older brothers could get a’holt of on Friday nights before the football games or the rodeos, depending on the season. Wearing out the tires on the ranch trucks racing ‘um and spinning ‘um out in the fields. Trying to talk girls into letting me get to third base in the truck beds, shit like that.”
“Pretty sure you didn’t have to talk too hard, cowboy.”
“Hey, my dirty talkin’ skills have improved in the last decade or so, sunshine. I had to get ‘um perfected before I started trying to get you to let me get to third base.” He winked at her just to watch her beam.
“I let you get a lot further than third base.”
“Mmm, don’t I know it. Plan on hitting several more home runs as soon as we get settled in Cheyenne and get the little one to bed.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, honey. I’m already aching for you.”
She shook her head at him then stared out the windows, taking in the magnificent Wyoming landscapes as they flew by. “Does your family ever get to see you ride?” she asked suddenly. “Oh, but I bet they’re haying all summer aren’t they?”
It deeply impressed Austin that she knew what was going on at the ranch in his absence. “They are haying, but actually Mama and Daddy and a few of ‘em are coming to Cheyenne to see me and to have fun at Frontier Days. When we were growing up, we came to Cheyenne every year. You’ll get to meet ‘em. They should be in tomorrow afternoon sometime, but they’re just staying a couple of nights.”
Concern darkened her eyes, and she gnawed on her bottom lip.
“They’ll love you, darlin’.”
“I’m not exactly the kind of girl you take home to meet Mama.” She instinctively glanced back at J.J.
“My mama’s gonna love you and J.J. I can’t wait for them to meet you.”
“I’m not used to caring what other people think or trying to impress anyone. I don’t know what you’re doing to me, cowboy.”
“You impressed the hell outta me as soon as I laid eyes on you, Ms. Sanchez.”
“You just liked my rack.” The naughty little grin she gave him had a direct connection to his groin.
He grunted his approval. “You do have fan-fucking-tastic tits, baby. My mouth and my cock need to spend way more time with ‘um. I intend to do that tonight, as well, but that ain’t the first thing that impressed the hell outta me.”
“So, what impressed you enough to want to share your hotel room with me and then up and decide you might like me to move to Nebraska for you?”
“Your fire. Your soul. Your spunk. I felt it as soon as I grabbed a’holt of you. You knew there were things worth fightin’ for. You’re damn beautiful, Summer. I could spend the rest of my life just looking at’cha, but I felt something besides just that immediately. Besides, I’m the one that’s ‘sposed to be impressing you. You don’t have to impress anyone. Soon as my mama meets you she’ll try to get you to join her ‘Get Austin to quit this bull riding nonsense’ band.”
“I might just do that,” Summer laughed.
“See, you two will be thick as thieves. Dad and I will be screwed seven ways from Sunday.”
She turned back to stare out the windows again, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Wiggling in her seat, she glanced back up at him sheepishly.
“There’s a McDonald’s about four miles from here, so go on with it.”
“I have to pee,” she admitted begrudgingly.
Laughing at her outright, Austin got in the right hand lane. He knew where 120 would ultimately take them. Knew the twists and turns, the landmarks he’d stop and show her, and where they could get out and have lunch. But the road fate had thrown him down faster than any damn bull had come out of the chute, he had no idea where that was heading, and if he were being truthful, that scared him worse than anything ever could.
Chapter Nine
When they were about a half hour outside of Thermopolis, somewhere between Manderson and Worland, basically in the middle of bumblefuck, J.J.’s frustrated grunts turned into wails of anger.
“Oh, it’s okay, J. We can stop in a little while.” Summer unbuckled in her seat and leaned back to try and calm him. She offered him a pacifier, which he promptly tossed in his fury.
“Got his mama’s temper
, I see.” Austin chuckled. “We can stop and get out for a little while. His ass is probably sore. I know mine is.” He let two trucks pulling horse trailers, most certainly heading for Cheyenne, pass him and then pulled off at a large field between two family farms near a feed store.
J.J. quieted down as soon as Summer unbuckled him. He wiggled until she lowered him to the ground on his feet, held both of his hands, and let him walk with assistance all over the field. Austin stayed with them, keeping a constant watchful eye for snakes and wildlife.
“What are you looking for?” Summer’s concerned tone had him taking J.J.’s hands so he could be the steady hand for a little while.
“It’s the middle of July in Wyoming, darlin’. The grass here is a little higher than I think is safe. It ain’t my grass to mow, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let you or the little guy stumble up on a red belly, or much worse, a prairie rattler. You have shorts on. Why don’t you head on back to the truck for me? I’ll walk with him, let him get some energy out, we’ll chat, and then we can change him and get back on the road.”
Summer leaned in and brushed a kiss on Austin’s jaw. “Thank you for taking such good care of him. I’ll be fine, though. I got bit twice when I was in New Mexico. Turned Vixen too tight, fell, and landed on a coral. Bit my ass through my jeans. Had to go to the hospital. Thankfully the denim took most of the venom.”
Austin nodded his thankfulness as well. “I promise every time I bite your sexy ass, I’ll only make it feel good, sugar.” He winked at her as her olive cheeks blistered once again. “I’ve been bit a time or two, myself. Seemed like it happened every fucking time my dad told me to wear my chaps and not chinks anymore ‘cause the snakes were gonna be coming out, and I chose not to listen.”
Summer laughed with him as he let J.J. lead them around the open field. Austin’s methodic scans of the grass seemed to make her happy. He hadn’t been doing anything he wouldn’t have normally done, but it was becoming more and more clear that Summer Sanchez had never had anyone looking out for her. That was all about to change.
