Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  “You’re just training them for something different than the ones we ride for fun,” Daphne mused. Then she cocked her head and stared hard at Cal. “You’re proud of Widowmaker. I can tell. But you can’t tell me it didn’t kill you to know that your horse hurt your brother that badly.”

  “I wasn’t happy about it, no,” Cal agreed. “But my brother knew the risks he was taking. And believe me, he took a lot. He started too young and didn’t take care of himself. And part of that is our fault as his family because we’re so damn screwed up that we couldn’t even love him the way he deserved.”

  Daphne swallowed. She turned and looked back over at Met. He had given up trying to ignore the horse. Widowmaker was bobbing his head up and down with enthusiasm as Met scratched his chest. Carson was still talking a mile a minute but had stopped snapping photographs. Daphne had a feeling that the interview was going well. In fact, she should have been thrilled. This was exactly what had to happen. It was the completion of her attempt to fulfill Laredo Hernandez’s ridiculous request to help his company get hold of their livestock contract.

  “What’s eating you?” Cal asked her suddenly. “You look like you’ve got to give someone a whole slew of bad news.”

  “Why do you hide out here and pretty much shun your family?” Daphne asked him suddenly. “What good does it do you to pretend that you’re angry at all of them?”

  “Who says that’s what I do?” He cocked his head to one side and gazed down at her in a way that went far beyond a thirty or even a forty-year-old. The man looking out at her from behind his blue eyes was positively ancient. “I stay here because this is the best way I can help my family. I breed the horses and run the ranching part of the operation. There’s nothing for me to do back in town. Laredo’s got that covered. Believe me. And my father would not welcome my presence in the city anyway.”

  “Why are the two of you at odds?” Daphne demanded suddenly. “Why is Joe Hernandez at odds with everyone? And why does nobody in your family just pull the plug on him and tell him it’s time to retire quietly so he can stop making a mess of things for the rest of you?”

  “It’s complicated,” Cal said after a minute. “I’ve seen the way you look at my brother. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. But you can’t begin to understand what’s at stake here or everything that’s happened over the last decade. You just can’t. So, you can look at me and look at my family and think you know what we should all do, but you’d be wrong.” Cal pushed away from the post and started walking away. “And the more you judge and think you know what’s going on, the more you’d be wrong anyway. So, if I were you, I would just smile and try to play nice.”

  Daphne tried to respond, but she could not even begin to find the words. What was he talking about? She didn’t know what? What was it he thought she was judging? Him? His brothers? His father? Maybe she was judging all three because every single person in this family was absolutely insane. They were all hiding things. None of them would talk about what had happened in the past to make them all the way that they were now, and nobody wanted to admit that they needed to communicate and come clean or risk spending the rest of their lives wondering what was really going on.

  Cal was now gesturing to a big pen back behind Carson. Daphne realized that there was a very large bull inside the pen. Carson had taken his camera back out and was howling with delight as he photographed the big white-and-gray speckled bull. The thing looked as if it could rampage through a village and still find time to nap after the murder and mayhem was done.

  Daphne shivered a little and tried to remind herself that a few kisses and a dance did not mean she was in a relationship with Met Hernandez. This was not her family and not her problem. She had plenty of her own problems. Justin was a fine example of that. It was just too bad that he hadn’t decided to follow Daphne out here to the ranch so that she might have the opportunity to shove him in the bull pen and watch the enormous creature kick him around a bit.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There was something wrong with Daphne, but Met could not put his finger on what. He was having trouble concentrating anyway. As the two of them drove back toward Denver on the narrow two-lane highway, his shoulder began to throb in time with his heartbeat.

  He gripped the steering wheel hard, but that didn’t do much to help. The pain was excruciating. And the worst part of it was that he could not move to loosen up or to try and find a better position. He was stuck right there in the driver’s seat of his vehicle with nothing but an empty highway in front of him.

  “Are you all right?” She was staring at him with that look on her face again. “You told me before that my face was pale. Well, now yours is pale. You look sick. What’s happening and how can I help?”

  “I don’t think you can help at all,” he grunted. “I’m just really feeling the old injuries, that’s all.”

  “Cal told me that it was Widowmaker who ruined your shoulder.” She took a deep breath like she expected this revelation to somehow bother him.

  “So?”

  “Do you think that’s why your shoulder is hurting? Because Cal snuck that in on you?” She bit her full lower lip, and he wished that he could focus on that instead of this bullshit.

  “No. I don’t think that’s why.” His voice came out a little crabbier than usual, but he was a little tired of everyone trying to play sports psychology with him. “I wish people would stop thinking that they know what it’s like, or that they know what I’m feeling, or that they’ve had injuries so they know that they can tell me stories about how they’ve healed or gotten help and everything has been hunky dory for them. Well, it isn’t that easy for me.”

  “Please don’t be angry at me.” She reached over and touched his arm. “I’m sorry. You just seem tense.”

  He spotted a small roadside diner and jerked the wheel to pull over. “I’m hungry. You want something?”

  “Um, I don’t know.” She was obviously confused by his sudden desire to get off the road.

  He parked the truck and then turned in his seat to look at her. “Look,” he began slowly. “I’m sore. I need to pull over for a minute. You can either come in and grab something to eat, sit there and stare at me while I eat, or you can stay out here by yourself. It’s up to you.”

  Okay, so that hadn’t sounded very nice. He wasn’t feeling particularly nice right now. He was feeling awful. Maybe that’s why he was doing his level best to make everyone else feel awful too. It was a terrible way to behave, but at the moment, he was just too irritated to care.

  “I guess I’ll come inside with you.”

  She opened her door and got out. Not only did she sound stiff, she looked it too. He felt bad. He didn’t like feeling bad. Dammit, this whole trying to be sober thing sucked. Didn’t anyone understand how much easier it was to be congenial when you were too drunk to care?

  The little diner was quaint. Met had been here before. It had been a while, but he remembered that the food was good and the atmosphere was—well, it wasn’t bad. So, he opened the front door of the place and then stepped aside to let the lady enter first.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Great. He had probably offended her. That hadn’t been his intention. It felt like someone was shoving a hot poker through the back of his shoulder. It wasn’t necessarily an excuse for bad behavior, but he was about to use it like one.

  A waitress breezed by with a whole tray full of plates piled high with delicious-smelling home-style food. “Take a table wherever you like, honey!”

  Met had to do a quick mental lineup of the waitress. He didn’t remember sleeping with her. He hoped he hadn’t slept with her because that always made things far more awkward when you had a girl with you and were trying to pretend the one taking your order hadn’t seen you naked. That was why he’d stopped sleeping with waitresses a few years back. It just never worked out. And when you eventually broke things off, you had to find a new place to eat.

  Daphne chose a boo
th in the corner and sat down. Met sat across from her. Then she folded her hands on the tabletop, gazed at him with solemn dark eyes, and pursed her lips together.

  Oh shit.

  “Tell me what’s going on before I take this fork”—her gaze indicated the one sitting by her left elbow—“and shove it so far up your ass that you won’t be able to think about anything else.”

  Met felt his eyebrows launch high as he processed what this sweet little woman was saying. “Wow, for such a little thing, you are fierce, woman!”

  “I don’t like being snapped at when I don’t understand what’s going on.” She gave him an expectant look. “You won’t tell me, so I can only make assumptions. Then you don’t like my assumptions but still won’t tell me what’s going on. That’s stupid.”

  “It’s none of your business,” he grumbled as the waitress appeared.

  “Hey there, Met! Long time no see.”

  The waitress beamed at him, and Met realized that they’d gone to school together. Her name was Gracie something or another. He couldn’t recall exactly. Great. He sighed and nodded his head. “Good to see you, Gracie. Can I have a beer—no. You’d better make it a soda.”

  “And you, ma’am?” Gracie beamed at Daphne. “What would you like?”

  “Iced tea, please?”

  Gracie bustled off, and Met hazarded a look across the table at Daphne. To his surprise, she was actually fighting back a smile. Then she pointed the fork at him in a mock threatening gesture. “Do you know everybody?”

  “I think I went to school with her,” Met admitted. “It’s hard to remember back that far, but she’s from a local ranching family. I remember that much.”

  “Right.” Daphne nodded. “I suppose you’re the guy who actually made something out of himself on the rodeo circuit. They all know you.”

  “Some do.” That was all he was willing to agree to on that subject. He didn’t like the notoriety part. “It sucks having everyone you know and all of their relations and whatnot see you eat dirt on satellite television. Hell. I think I even ate dirt on pay per view. It’s like getting your ass kicked over and over again for their amusement.”

  “At least you tried,” she pointed out. “How many people don’t?”

  “Five seconds ago you were ready to stab me with a fork,” he reminded her. “What do you care if I’m the laughingstock of Denver?”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s just it! You are such an idiot! That’s why I want to stab you with a fork. It’s because I care! If I didn’t give a crap about you, I wouldn’t care how you treat me. I’d just go back to work, tell my boss I finished this job, and then never look at you again.”

  “Oh.” Hell. Why hadn’t he thought about that? “I suppose that makes me the bigger jerk.”

  “Yes. Definitely.”

  “It has nothing to do with all that psychobabble bullshit.” Okay, that wasn’t entirely true, but he really didn’t want to talk about Widowmaker right now. “I just hurt. Normally I drink. That’s what I do. It helps manage the pain. Then I’m not a dick. At the moment, I need about a case of bourbon to make this pain go away.”

  “I’m sorry.” She bit that full lower lip once again, and he thought he might actually go insane thinking about how he wanted to bite it too. “But drinking isn’t going to fix the problem. It’s just making it bigger and kicking the can down the road. Alcohol isn’t an answer to pain. It’s just another problem.”

  “Tell that to my shoulder, my spine, my hip, and my leg!” He was starting to feel grumpy again.

  Gracie buzzed up with their drinks. “What can I get you two to eat?”

  Good Lord, had the woman always been this perky? Met wanted to belt out that she could get him a platter full of sourpuss, but that would have been lame. “Just bring me the steak and eggs, over easy please and rare on that steak.”

  “Sounds good!”

  “I’ll have the chicken fried steak,” Daphne decided. “Lots of extra gravy please.”

  Gracie’s grin was so big it consumed her face. “Oh, for sure! I’ll have that right up for y’all!”

  Gracie buzzed away again like a busy little bee, and Met watched her go with the feeling that there was something he wasn’t quite remembering about the woman. Then he looked over at Daphne. “I have to admire a woman who will ask for extra gravy. That’s just good eating there.”

  “Right?” Daphne winked at him. “I’ll have to work it off in the gym tomorrow, but that’s all right. I don’t mind. I think chicken fried steak is best ordered in greasy spoon diners found on narrow back roads.”

  “You might be right about that,” he murmured. Sitting back in the booth, he stared at this woman who was simply one surprise after another. “Just like enjoying bourbon by the bottle and not the glass.”

  “No. Not the same thing.” Daphne’s expression grew distinctly mulish and rather irritated. “You cannot claim that. It’s bullshit. Alcohol will ruin your life. Look what it’s doing to your father.”

  “My father ruined his life because he couldn’t keep his pecker in his pants.” Whoops. The proverbial cat was out of the bag on that one. And he’d spilled the beans to the public relations team too. Nice. Laredo would just be thrilled about that.

  “What?” Daphne put her hands flat on the tabletop and leaned forward. “Are you serious? Is that what you saw that made you leave?”

  “Who told you that?” Wait. She had just spent a few minutes or more standing next to Cal. Dammit. His brother was such a big mouth sometimes. Actually, they all were to some extent. It was a horrible side effect of being a Hernandez and thinking that you knew it all. Met held up his hand just as Daphne started to speak. “That’s okay. I can go ahead and guess that Cal is the one who told you that I saw something that made me leave. It’s a little more complicated than that, but then aren’t things always more complicated?”

  She was already bobbing her head yes. “So, you knew your father was cheating. That would be really painful for a young man.”

  “He had done it before,” Met admitted.

  It was so good to say this out loud to someone other than his father. It felt like he had been holding poison in his soul for years and now he was finally purging it. Maybe that’s what he needed to do. Maybe he just needed to get someone else’s opinion. He needed to know that he wasn’t crazy for thinking this was unacceptable.

  “Boys should not be asked to keep a secret like that for their parent.” Her quiet voice was soothing, but pairing it with the compassion evident in her expression made her seem almost angelic. She exhaled very slowly. “I’m so sorry that it happened to you, Met. That isn’t fair.”

  “Isn’t it though?” He whispered the words. “I’ve always wondered, you know? Don’t fathers and sons keep secrets about stuff like that? Girly magazines, sexist jokes, comments about young women they think are attractive, you know—that kind of thing?”

  Why did he believe she was the judge and jury on this behavior? It didn’t make sense. And yet she was the one they called to make nasty truths go away. Surely that gave her an edge on knowing what was normal and what people wanted to be normal?

  Daphne was thinking about it very seriously. He could tell that much. It was all over her face, and he appreciated that sense of authenticity that he did not get anywhere else in his life. In a world that seemed determined to lie to him, she was the one person who never once did anything but told the truth about how she felt and what she saw.

  Finally she spoke. Her words carried weight because they were quiet and heartfelt. “Those things do not compare to the insidious nature of a secret that forces a child to choose between loyalty to one parent or another. Think about it, Met. If your father had made a randy joke about that woman—whoever she was—would you have really cared as long as he went back into the house later and kissed your mother and you knew that he loved her? No. Because we know that sort of thing is a joke. It’s silly and bawdy and rude maybe, but those are things that guys do. In private
, you all act like a bunch of middle school boys.”

  “Nothing truer was ever said,” he could not resist adding with a wink.

  She gave a tiny shake of her head. “Don’t do that. Don’t minimize it. That man asked you to lie to your mother whether overtly or covertly. It doesn’t matter. You were expected not to tell her that you saw what you did.”

  That was certainly true enough. Met could never forget that night in the barn. “He was just screwing this woman in the tack room. It seemed so crass, and yet I could tell that he really cared about her. It didn’t make any sense. It was our barn. I had just gone in to put something away. The bad weather was coming in, and there was already snow on the ground. I remember that.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I’d just turned twelve,” he murmured. The image in his mind was so vivid. The barn, the snow, and his father with one arm wrapped around the strange woman’s waist as he cupped her body to his and surged into her from behind. Something else was niggling at him. It was nipping at his consciousness. “That wasn’t too long before Jesse came to live with us. I don’t know why I just thought of that. Her parents died right after that. It’s an odd kind of coincidence. Don’t you think?”

  Gracie buzzed up with their food, and her appearance seemed to shatter the kind of mental trance that had taken over Met’s brain. He shook his head a bit to clear his thoughts. The food smelled good. Maybe that was all he needed. Maybe just a bit of food would settle him and help calm the need to indulge in something else.

  A guy could hope.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Daylight was fading to dusk when they left the diner. Daphne certainly hadn’t expected it to be such a wonderful experience. Considering the animosity between them when they had walked into the place, she had anticipated a very uncomfortable dining experience and an even worse conversation.