Rusty's brow rose, thinking. "She's way overdue for an oil change."
"Do that too."
"That's another…twenty?"
"That's fine," Nate said, stepping forward to shake the man's hand. "I really appreciate this, Rusty. She needs this vehicle to be as reliable as possible."
"No problem, buddy."
Nate left Rusty to gather up his tools and climbed into his truck, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket to let Layla know the prognosis. For the fifth time, he read back over the text she'd sent him an hour ago to tell him their date was a go; Kerri would pick her up after work so she could get ready and he could pick her up at six at the house. Despite the mediocre news about the car, nothing could deflate his excitement. It had been quite some time since he'd had something he looked forward to as much as seeing Layla Sullivan. Framing his day with her pretty smile and quiet presence gave him a distraction from the shambles his life was in. Her phone rang to voice mail, so he left a message and turned the key in the ignition.
The drive to the Baylor ranch was short and familiar and felt almost as much like coming home as rolling into Nan's. He honked as he passed Emma and Noah's little spot at the end of the driveway and kept going, pulling his truck up beside Finn Baylor's brand new pickup in front of his newly-expanded cabin. Things had been moving and shaking with the newlyweds.
He'd expected Lily on the front step, but instead, she found Lily in the arena across the driveway, with a fully tacked up Jet standing nearby.
"What's this?"
"We're just waiting for a cowboy to come along." Lily shrugged innocently, reaching out to stroke the horse's neck. He checked for another mount for her—he'd been sore after their ride, but the good kind of sore, not the body-torn-apart-by-a-bull-sore, so he wouldn't have declined another jaunt into the woods. He'd kind of enjoyed it, in truth. It brought him back to his roots; back before the bulls and the buckles, tooling around on horseback with his best friends, imagining the future.
He raised his brow when his search turned up empty. "And what about you?"
"Oh I've already been out today."
"And you're just humoring me."
She nodded toward the other end of the ring, where a plastic steer model was hooked up behind the ranch's work ATV. A pink helmet sat on the seat of the machine.
"Okay, what is this?"
"Well, if you can't ride bulls…"
"I'm gonna rope." He rubbed a hand over his mouth, looking at the plastic target, then back at Jet. "Lily, I don't think…"
"Just try it. Humor me."
"You know I haven't been on a horse in well over a year, and here I am, twice in one week?" He shook his head with an exaggerated sigh, and then climbed up the side of the gelding, pushing his foot into the opposing stirrup and gathering up the reins. He reached down to stroke the gelding's neck. "I never was much of a roper."
"But you were, once. I saw the pictures."
Early in his career, he'd thought the All Around Cowboy title was something he'd strive toward—until he realized how good he was on the bulls, and how much more quickly he could get into more money doing just the one thing. Ropers and bronc riders were tough, sure, but bull riders were the rock stars of the whole outfit. Those boys were badass and had followings that would make a headlining band jealous—who could resist that?
He'd shown pictures of his early rodeo days to Lily and now it was backfiring.
"I should have burned those."
"Should have, but didn't. Now pick up the rope."
As he was told, he picked up the lariat hanging off the horn of the saddle, looping the excess in his left hand that held Jet's reins, and shaking the loop out into his right hand, beside his thigh. Jet lifted his head, an ear twitching back as he paid mind to what his rider was doing. This was a finely tuned, well-trained horse; Dane wouldn't have had anything else for a personal mount, and Nate had discovered that on their trail ride.
"Easy," he said under his breath, and the gelding stilled.
It had been a good long time since he'd even held a rope, let alone tried to throw it over anything. Drawing in a deep breath, he flipped his wrist and twirled the loop once.
He glanced up at Lily, who was watching him with an expectant expression that just about broke his heart. He'd try. But he wasn't going to lay any money on being the Comeback Kid. Not in team roping, anyway.
Urging Jet forward, he approached the plastic steer, glancing over his shoulder at her.
"I don't think you'll be doing any driving today, Lil."
She shrugged, following him across the arena. A few feet out, he straightened his shoulders and started working the loop up. His first throw missed by about six inches. He heard Lily let out a breath. He reeled the rope back in and glanced back at her with a laughing shake of his head. He hadn't expected to do anything, really. Hell, it was only his second time back on a horse. All the parts of his body that were supposed to work together for this were still rusty.
"You sound like it's your career we're thinking about here."
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Noah's voice sounded from behind them just as Nate released the rope for the second time. It landed haphazard around the horns of the target and Jet immediately took a couple steps back.
"Eas-y," he breathed to the gelding, dropping the rope and reining the gelding around to face Noah. "Your sister-in-law thinks I'll make a heeler."
"Header," Lily scolded. "I didn't give you that much credit, and neither should you."
"What does a man have to do to get a break around here?" Nate laughed, shaking his head.
"I don't know," Noah replied, just as incredulous. "They make you think they need you and then just when you get feeling a little big, they knock you down a peg or two."
Nate held up a finger. "You know there isn't a Baylor woman on this property that needs any one of you boys. They like having a choice."
"He's not lying," Lily quipped from behind.
Noah shot her a look.
"Don't listen to her harebrained ideas, Nate. I've got an idea."
"Good Lord. There's a scary thought."
"And you won't have to be a heeler or a header."
"Well that one was pretty obvious anyways."
"No listen. Rodeo school." The middle Baylor brother splayed his hands out in the air in front of him as if laying out a cityscape.
"Rodeo school," Nate repeated, avoiding eye contact with Noah to try and curb his desire to laugh out loud. "I don't think I'll be heading to rodeo school anytime soon."
"No, no, not learning. Teaching. You know what they say about 'those who can't do teach'."
"That's usually reserved for people who were real shitty at it in the first place," Nate said with a frown. But the seed was planted. He needed to start generating some income; he couldn't lick his wounds forever. And driving two hours each way to work cattle for Reicher's every day wasn't a viable option.
"Or people who literally can't. You can't ride bulls again. But I bet you could give some young, wet-behind-the-ears cowboy a tip or two on how to do it as good as you once did."
"Nobody's gonna pay me to stand behind the chute and give them pointers on their ride. I can't even get near a bull chute without shitting myself."
"Are you kidding me? How many times did you end up in Vegas?"
Nate reached down to stroke Jet's neck lightly, drawing a breath as he thought about the years he'd made it to the NFR in Vegas. Something pretty damn special for anyone, but amazing for a small-town boy like him. "Three times."
"And it would have been four if it hadn't been for Night Train. Trust me, brother, your skills will be in demand. Emma and I will do barrel racing. We can get one of the Reicher boys in for roping. Mine some of your Denver contacts for steer wrestling and broncs. Of course, the big draw will be the bulls, but it's nice to offer something else."
Noah seemed so convinced it was a good idea; Nate wished he could add his enthusiasm. But he wasn't even sure
he'd be able to get into the arena and look at a bull, never mind give pointers and stand over the chute giving words of advice to the cowboy below him, about to put his life on the line for a few dollars.
"I don't know, Noah."
"Just think about it, Nate. You got time."
He didn't, really. Nan had already mentioned the job at Grant Reicher's a couple of times—they were short-handed since Chase had hit the road with his growing country music career—but that meant leaving town, and leaving Layla behind. And call him selfish, but he'd done that once, and he wasn't ready to skip town again without exploring this thing with her a little more. Beggars couldn't really be choosers, but if this was something that could generate some cash…
"I don't have anything to invest."
"Don't worry about that. Finn and Dane want to invest. We'll use the ranch. You get to just show up and collect a paycheck, let us worry about everything else."
"I couldn't…"
"You could, Nate," Noah said, pulling the gate of the arena open for his friend. "You were more than kind to me when I was down and out, kept me and Black Jack while I was working things out with Emma in Denver, and you didn't charge me a damn cent. So when you're down and out, we want to give you a hand."
He turned to Lily.
"Did you know about this?"
She responded with a shrug, slipping out the gate and heading for their cabin across the yard. "I gotta get ready for a stock shoot. I'm not responsible for anything he says. Later, Nater."
Nate watched her back for a moment, then swung down off of Jet. He was pleased that, despite all the time away from riding, he could still get on and off okay. That was one thing Lily had really struggled with, and he couldn't imagine enjoying Finn's hands on his ass, either.
"You've already talked with your brothers about this?" he asked, turning back to Noah.
"Sure have. And they're all in. But we're not going to do it without you. No sense. We couldn't muster the talent on our own. You're the heart of the whole idea."
The thought crossed his mind the Baylor family might have been creating something out of nothing specifically for the purpose of giving him a leg up. He probably wouldn't have let that slide from anybody else. But these men were as close to him as Banks; they'd grown up together on this ranch, and while he could be a proud man, if anybody was going to help him, it would be Dane, Finn, and Noah.
"No pressure or anything," he said with a laugh, rubbing the back of his neck as they made their way into the barn. He clipped Jet into the crossties in the barn and started stripping his tack.
"No, no pressure. But what we'd do is start putting it together through this fall and winter and start taking students in the spring. So you can think about it for a few weeks. We'd hire you on as a consultant until we actually set up the school. You'll be busy—we'd need to collect more instructors, and the stock. We have the land and we'd build what we need for extra facilities. But you know more about any of this than we do. So it would be your baby. Lily would look after the books. Everybody here would be a little bit involved. You just tell us what you need and we'll make it happen."
Nate considered all of this while he ran his hands over Jet's legs, doing an overall check to make sure the horse was in the same condition he'd started in. He'd never imagined being in this kind of a position. It hadn't been his dream, but Noah's excitement was starting to become infectious. They'd never get rich, but it would be a chance to give back. To provide the kind of resource he'd always wished he'd had to young cowboys looking for a competitive edge going into the rodeo circuit.
"Noah, this is…a lot. It's a big deal. You guys would be putting a lot on the line for me."
His friend shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against one of the stall doors.
"It's been a good year for beef."
Nate laughed out loud, unclipping Jet and turning him toward the door at the end of the barn that opened up to the yard for the working horses. The big gelding lazily sauntered past him and out the door to join his friends, and Nate closed it behind him, turning back to Noah.
"It's always a good year for beef."
Baylor beef, anyway. The family had great connections with most of the locals, from Yvette's burger stand to the grocery store, and that didn't include the major buyers they dealt with on a regular basis.
"And it would be good for the rest of the economy in Three Rivers. Think about that, too. Good chance to give back to the little town that gave you so much growing up."
That was a big point. This would be the kind of work Nan would be proud of. The ability to give something back to the community she loved so much. They had embraced him and Banks like they were the town's own when his folks had skipped the county line and never looked back. There had been fundraising and support and a big homecoming party after his first NFR appearance.
Sure, there would be lots of out-of-towners; that was the whole point. But he wanted to make sure young people in the community got in on it, too. Kids like Layla had been—born on the wrong side of the track or folks too poor to support their dreams of rodeo.
Thinking of her, he smiled at Noah.
"I'm in."
—TWELVE—
"I'm heading out for lunch," Layla said, poking her head into Dr. Fields' exam room where he sat with a stack of files. She was quite sure the kindly doctor never took a break during the day, and at first she'd wanted to be in the office whenever he was. Eventually, with his daily prodding, she let go of the guilt.
The physician looked up, pushing his glasses up his nose. "See you in an hour."
When her car was working well, she'd sneak home for a few spare minutes with Mason, but today she'd have to settle for a phone call. She flipped the door sign to 'back at 1', and stepped out into the sunshine of the day.
Mid-day during the week in downtown Three Rivers was not as busy as one might anticipate. There were several cars parked in the lot at Hinkley's just across the street, and a couple pickups in front of the sidewalk of the Baylor's general store. Danny's wasn't open yet, but otherwise the street was quiet. She tugged out her cell, punched in the home number, and looked both ways before crossing the street.
This was the part where she couldn't let Nate down. She'd said yes, so now she had to follow through, whether it was a good idea or not. She was nothing if not a woman of her word. Kerri picked up on the second ring.
"Hey, how's my rugrat?"
"Trying hard to crawl. Time for some more babyproofing, mama."
Having made it safely to the other sidewalk, Layla let out a breath and closed her eyes. Sometimes things went too quickly. Sometimes she felt like she missed too much. She should just go home tonight and stay in, and catch up on everything she was missing. But she couldn't let Nate down.
"On it. Hey, can you do me a favor?" she asked, pushing open the door of Hinkley's and nodding a greeting to Tina, the friendly regular waitress. Tina noted the phone at Layla's ear and pointed to an empty booth silently.
"Of course, but you owe me."
Kerri said it every single time, but also refused to collect every single time.
"Can you pick me up from work tonight?" She slid into the booth and took the menu and coffee Tina set in front of her.
"Nate out of commission?"
"Actually, there's a second part to this favor. Can you stay a couple extra hours?"
"You know you don't have to ask twice. Extra shift at Danny's?"
Layla smiled.
"Not quite. A date."
Kerri's squeal on the other end of the line made Layla pull the phone from her ear until she was finished.
"With Nate, right? I know it's with Nate."
Aware of those around her that could take this kind of information and run, Layla simply replied. "Yes."
"Oh my God. I knew it!"
Layla sometimes forgot, as mature as she was, Kerri was barely not a teenager anymore. Moments like this reminded her. Truth was, Kerri's excitement
was contagious, and now she felt far more excited than cautious about the date. She flagged Tina while Kerri continued to babble on the other end of the line.
"The regular. The turkey soup and a BLT, please."
Tina didn't even bother scribbling on her pad, but went to the kitchen. Layla only came in a couple of times a week—a little indulgence to treat herself—but the order was always the same. It was the cheapest thing on the menu, but it was also delicious.
"So if you two can swing by around 4:30, that'd be great. Now put my baby on the phone."
Mason would just chew the receiver but she figured the next best thing to actually being there to see him was him hearing her voice. She babbled on to him for a few minutes before Kerri came back on the line, right about the same time her meal was ready. She said goodbye and hung up, turning her phone face down on the table as the steaming bowl of soup was slid in front of her.
"Looks good as ever," Layla said, offering Tina a warm smile. The waitress probably didn't know it, but Layla considered them kindred spirits. Both of them single mothers, both of them busting their humps to make things good for their children. She wouldn't consider them friends and they never saw each other outside of their respective workplaces, but they had a friendly rapport.
"You bet. Say, did I hear you say you had a date?"
Layla took pause. It was pretty well known the majority of gossip in the town came out of Hinkley's, and she always tried to keep her head down when she came in. But she couldn't exactly lie to Tina, after she'd overheard her phone conversation. So she smiled and crossed her fingers that there was something more interesting going on in Three Rivers this week.
"Sure did."
"Anybody I know?" the waitress asked slyly.
"Probably not. Nobody real special." That was a blatant lie if she'd ever heard one, but Tina didn't know that.
The redhead's brow raised and she smiled as she seemed to catch on that Layla wasn't going to spill. "Ah, gotcha. Well, you enjoy. The soup and the date. Holler if you need anything."
Layla smiled, thanking the waitress and set to work on her lunch, willing the rest of the afternoon to go quickly.
Secret Heart Page 6
