“Hank told me he wanted to return to the rodeo. I thought he meant weekend trips, and I... I told him he should go back because he seemed to love it so much. I didn’t know he meant full-time.”
Travis’s eyes widened, then glazed over as if he remembered his own pieces of Hank’s puzzle. “Sweet mother of—” He trailed off, staring down at the checkered tablecloth.
Claire looked between them, clearly puzzled by the pall of gloom that had suddenly descended. “So? Now he won’t rodeo.”
Alex felt like her throat had been tied in knots. “Oh, yes, he will.”
“What are you talking about?” the girl cried. “He’s going to train horses.”
Travis’s brows came together. “I suggested that. He didn’t. We don’t know if he really wants to do it, or if he’s agreeing to it just for us.”
“But we’re not going to sell the ranch now, right? Who else would run it?”
He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. But we have to let him go.”
“We have to make him go,” Alex corrected softly.
Travis lifted sympathetic eyes to hers. “You have to make him go.”
His words stabbed her. “Me?”
“You’re the only one who has the power to do it. I’ve never seen anyone matter more to him than you.”
Alex tried again to swallow the knot in her throat. She remembered what Travis had told her outside the rodeo office in Lander. Marriage and National Finals Rodeo Championships don’t mix. Married cowboys who tried to go after a national title usually failed at one or the other.
“I can’t do it, Travis. I love him too much.”
“Do you love him enough?”
Claire slapped both hands on the table. “Will you please tell me what you two are talking about?”
Travis shifted his gaze to his sister. “Don’t you see? He’s been aching to get back to the rodeo ever since he left eight years ago.”
“Bull hockey!” Claire spat. “He could’ve gone to any number of rodeos in the past eight years.”
“But he couldn’t contend for a national title—not and run the ranch, too.” Travis’s good fist pounded the table. “How could I have been so blind? Why didn’t I see this years ago?”
“See what?” Claire cried.
“How he worked so hard at the end of the day, roping cows. I thought he was training horses, but that was just an offshoot. He was keeping in form, for the time when he returned to the arena. Did you know he never let his PRCA card expire? Why would he have kept up that expense unless he was planning on going back?”
Claire looked stunned.
“And the way he’d watch me when I talked about my losses and wins. The way he handled the gold buckle I brought home from the National Finals.”
“Was he jealous?” Alex asked.
Travis nodded. “Some, I think, but mostly it was awe. Thinking back on it, I’d say he wanted a championship like a captured wolf wants freedom. He would gnaw off his own leg—or sell the Garden—to get away.”
Alex closed her eyes against the tears. “He told me that he didn’t compete in local rodeos because if he wasn’t the lead steer, the view never changes.”
“He’s never been the lead steer,” Travis said. “He came close, though. When Mama and Dad died, he led in bareback riding by twenty thousand dollars over his nearest competitor. He was third in calf roping.”
“Then he had to quit,” Alex said softly. “He had to come home and run the ranch.”
“And raise us,” Travis added.
Claire glanced between them. “Are you saying he’s resented us all this time? That he hated running the ranch? I don’t believe it.”
“He’d bite nails before he’d admit it, but deep down, it had to be there.”
“He loves us, Travis,” Claire insisted. “And he’s done everything he could for the Garden.”
“Think about how you felt just a minute ago, Claire,” Alex said. “When you offered to get a job instead of going to college, didn’t you feel just a tiny bit resentful toward the ranch?”
The girl lifted her chin. “Maybe. But I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“Just like Hank did. He gave up his dream for the ranch,” Travis said. “He gave up his dream for us, so we wouldn’t have to give up ours. I’d say that means he loves us.”
“So why was he going to sell the ranch?”
“He finally saw his chance to have his own dream, too.” Travis rubbed the back of his neck. “The taxes were just an excuse. He probably didn’t even think past that to the alternatives we’ve come up with. He wants to rodeo that much.”
Quiet descended as they absorbed his words. Numb with shock, Alex turned and began flipping the hamburgers.
She’d told Travis and Claire that she was going to stay, but that was before she realized how much Hank loved the rodeo, how much he’d given up. She had to let him follow his dream. She had to give him up by pretending her dream hadn’t changed, by pretending she still wanted to go to San Francisco.
She blinked hard to force back tears of anger and frustration. Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Why did she have to realize what she wanted, just before she lost it? It would’ve been better not to know.
“Does that mean we have to sell the ranch in order to let Hank rodeo?” Claire asked “I know I’ve complained about things here, but it’s home. I don’t want to see the Garden chopped up into little pieces with condos all over it.”
Travis’s voice was firm. “I’ll run the ranch. I can’t rodeo, anyway, for a good six months, maybe more. By that time I’ll be into next year’s money. Maybe I can find a foreman by then. If not, I’ll keep on running it. I’ve had my go at the big time. It’s Hank’s turn to have his.”
“Who’ll train the horses?” Claire asked.
“Me,” Travis said. “I always have to polish them up, anyway, once Hank hands them over to me. Competition is different from working in an isolated arena. ’Course the hands will help me like they help him”
Claire sighed. “So, this is one of those times when you love someone enough to let them go?”
“Looks like it, kiddo.”
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed twelve times before Claire said softly, “Now I understand what you were talking about earlier. Alex, what are you going to do?”
Alex turned to face them with as brave a smile as she could manage. “What I have to do. Let him go.”
“What if he doesn’t want to be let go?” the girl asked.
Alex shrugged. Her shoulder felt like it weighed a ton. “If he doesn’t go, he’ll regret it. Maybe not now, but someday he would. I don’t think he’d blame me, but I would blame myself. He told me he’d rather be sorry for something he’s done than for something he didn’t do. He said he’s lived by that motto all his life.” She drew a halting breath. “He has to go.”
“Can’t you go with him?
Alex shook her head. “He doesn’t need me on the road. He’ll have enough to think about without—”
“He’s coming.” Travis’s words drew all eyes to the doorway.
Alex’s heart pounded with dread. It echoed Hank’s footsteps as he walked through the dining room. Then he pushed open the swinging doors into the kitchen and glanced around. His eyes came to rest on her.
Her own stung with tears. To hide them, she turned to face the stove. What she’d learned about this man during the past half hour made her love for him grow beyond any boundaries she knew existed. Even as she realized he didn’t love her enough to tell her about his plans to leave.
He gently turned her around to face him. “What’s wrong?”
“You were going to sell the Garden. I thought I was about to...to...”
“To lose another home. Right?”
She nodded, hoping he would blame the bleakness of her face on that.
“But we don’t have to sell the Garden now.” Hank glanced at Travis over his shoulder. “We’ve got it all figured out, right?”
“You’ve got that right, big brother. I figure I’ll stick around and run the Garden while you rodeo.”
For a full minute the only sound in the kitchen was the sizzling of the burgers. Alex tried not to shiver as Hank searched Travis’s face, then Claire’s, then her’s. Why did she feel like she was about to cut his throat when she couldn’t even breathe through her own?
He leaned one hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “Sounds like you three have been doing some talking.”
“Since you want to rodeo, that’s what you’re gonna do,” Travis said, his face and voice firm.
“And just who says I want to rodeo?”
“You did,” Alex told him. “In Lander. You told me you want to get back to it. I thought you meant on weekends, but you meant full time, didn’t you?”
“That’s when I thought we were losing the Garden. Now, I—”
“Now what?” Travis’s chair scraped the floor. “You’ve been dying to get back to the rodeo since you left eight years ago. Here’s your chance. Go.”
Hank’s eyes narrowed. “You have been doing some talking.”
“We just want you to be happy, Hank,” Claire said. “If you—”
Travis cut across his sister’s words. “You’ve had the Garden for eight years. It’s my turn.”
“You think you can do a better job?” Hank growled. “What experience do you have running a ranch? What makes you think you can save it when I couldn’t?”
“I know I have enough saved up to keep it running for the next ten years if we don’t sell another steer,” Travis told him. “And if you don’t like it, I’ll buy you out.”
They glared at each other across the room. Alex wanted to throw herself between them, but she couldn’t. Travis knew his brother well. Talking about Hank’s sacrifices would only make him dig in his heels.
“No. If anybody’s staying at the ranch, it’s me.” Hank placed an arm around Alex’s waist and drew her against him.
She could feel the tension in his hard body, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him to show her support. But that’s the last thing she could do.
“Why?” Alex asked softly.
He looked down at her, his eyes suddenly tender. “Because I love you, and this is where you’ll be happy.”
She felt like every knife in the kitchen just flung itself into her heart. He loved her? How could he tell her this now?
She pushed away from him and fled to the other side of the kitchen. “No! You can’t use me as an excuse to hold you here.”
“I don’t want to rodeo. Okay, I thought I did for a while, but that was before you came. You made this old house a home, Alex. You made it my home. It never was before you came. It was my father’s. I realized that on the trail drive.” He took a step toward her but stopped when she took one back. “I just want to be with you. I want to make the Garden your home, too.” He held out his arms. “I want to make these your home.”
Why didn’t he just slice her into pieces? “An hour ago you planned on selling the Garden.”
“That was when I thought there was no other way. Now there is. I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep the Garden for the next fifty years, but Travis’s money will help.”
“You can send your winnings home, big brother.”
Hank’s fists slammed down on the counter. “I’m not going to rodeo!”
“Yes, you are,” Alex insisted.
“You want to spend your life on the road?” he cried. “It’s not as great as it sounds. It’s fleabag motels, long hours on the road, bad meals—”
“I’m not going with you,” she said quietly.
He stared at her, disbelieving. “And just where the hell are you going to be?”
Alex looked at Travis, pleading with her eyes. She didn’t want witnesses when she took the knives from her own heart and buried them in Hank. She didn’t know how many she’d have to fling to make him leave, but she knew she’d feel every one.
Travis took the hint. “Come on, Claire. They need to be alone.”
Claire followed her brother obediently, but paused first to give Alex’s hand a squeeze. Alex squeezed back gratefully, then watched them leave.
Hank’s eyes stayed on her, but he waited for them to go before insisting, “You’re staying at the Garden. You’re going to marry me.”
The first knife twisted into her own heart. Alex nearly staggered from the pain. She shook her head. “You never asked me to stay. And you certainly never asked me to marry you.”
“I told you I needed you,” he roared. “What the hell did you think I meant?”
“Words, Hank. People need to hear the words in plain English. You never tell anybody anything, then you expect them to know what’s going on.”
He closed the distance between them and took her shoulders in his hands. “I was going to ask you the first minute we had alone after the trail drive, then I had to drive to Phoenix. And there hasn’t been time since I got home. So I’m asking now. Stay with me, Alex. I love you. I need you. Marry me.”
Somehow she kept tears from her eyes. “No. I’m going to San Francisco. That was the plan all along. It hasn’t changed.”
He jerked as if she’d thrust knife number one between his ribs. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“What the hell kind of games have you been playing for the past two weeks then?” His fingers dug into her shoulders. “You all but begged me to ask you to stay at the Garden.”
Alex’s chin rose at the reminder. “You’re right. All this time I thought you were being noble. That you didn’t ask because you thought I wanted to go to California. I didn’t know you had your own selfish agenda. You didn’t ask because you didn’t want to be tied down. You were planning on leaving the whole time.”
He winced as the truth cut deep. “But I’m not going now.”
“Yes, you are.” She watched pain and anger play across his face. She hated herself for what she was doing, hated the agony she saw in his eyes.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because...” What could she say? That she didn’t want to look at regret over the breakfast table the rest of her life? That she didn’t want to live with guilt for robbing him of a championship he never won? That she wanted all of him or nothing at all? Those arguments wouldn’t drive him away.
His hands slid to her arms and tightened. “You love me. I know you do.”
Alex’s eyes closed against the tears. Did she have the strength to say the words that would make him leave?
How could she? The anguish threatening to overwhelm her was ten times worse than when she held her mother’s hand and watched her fade away. Her mother never came back. Hank probably wouldn’t, either.
Her fingernails dug into her palms.
She had to find the strength somewhere. She couldn’t tie him down, not to her, not to the Garden. Like Claire said, she had to let him go because she loved him. Because freedom was the only way he would find his dream. And without his dream, he’d never be happy. She’d never be happy.
With a shaking, shallow breath, she looked him square in the eyes. “How could I love a man who would sell his family’s home without even telling them it was up for sale? A man who knows how much having a home and family means to me, but is so closemouthed he wouldn’t tell me he’s giving up his own home to chase a gold buckle? How can I ever trust you after this?”
His startled expression told Alex her knives had sunk deep. His grip tightened. “Alex, I swear I’ve learned my lesson. From now on, I’ll tell you when I’m going to breathe. Just don’t leave me.”
She felt as if her own blood flowed from the wounds she’d dealt him, but she had to go in for the kill. “You haven’t learned a damn thing. But I have. You’ve kept me from making a big mistake, Hank, and I guess I should thank you for that. You’ve made me realize it’s not you that I love, it’s the Garden.”
Hank had to lock his knees to keep them f
rom buckling. He shook his head, as much to clear it as to negate her words. “I don’t believe you.”
Alex pulled her hands from his grip and wrapped her arms around her waist, as if to protect herself from him. “I didn’t realize it until you said were going to sell the ranch. My first thought was that there wasn’t anything here for me anymore. I guess I’ve been in love with the idea of this wonderful place being my home.”
Every muscle in his body stiffened to keep from roaring with the pain raging through him. Alex didn’t love him? “Why?” he growled.
She hugged herself tighter. “Why what?”
“Why did you make me think you loved me?”
She winced and cast her eyes at some point behind him. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all you can say?” For every step he took toward her, she took one back, so he stopped.
“Go to the rodeo, Hank. You won’t be happy unless you do.”
Happy? Didn’t she know he couldn’t be happy without her? Just the thought of waking up every morning without the hope of seeing her, without talking to her, without kissing her, made him want to howl like a lone wolf.
How could this be happening? He had played by her rules. He’d opened up and shared his feelings with her. Okay, he’d left out one detail, but for that she has to rip his heart out and stomp on it like it was a bug trying to invade her kitchen?
How could he leave her? He didn’t want to rodeo anymore. He wanted to stay home with Alex. And that home—their home—was the Garden.
He spun on his heel and raked a hand through his hair. But how could he stay if she wasn’t going to be here? Her ghost would haunt the Garden. He’d walk in the door expecting to see those golden eyes light up, but they wouldn’t be around.
Being here every day without her would kill him.
He strode to the kitchen door and turned to face her, feeling empty and utterly without hope. “I’ll leave in the morning.”
Home Is Where Hank Is (Cowboys To The Rescue 1) Page 17
