“She didn’t accuse you.”
“She fired me, which sent a pretty strong message. She refused to talk to me after the accident or give me a chance to defend myself.”
Liberty had the decency to look ashamed. “The accident could have put us out of business.”
“Yeah, who cares about one dumb seventeen-year-old kid?”
“It wasn’t like that, Deacon.” She touched his hand and let her fingers linger.
He didn’t want to be angry anymore. Not with her lightly caressing his knuckles. Easier said than done. Deacon had spent a lot of years cultivating his anger. It would take more than a small show of sympathy from Liberty to vanquish it.
Her touch grew stronger. Bolder. The pressure increasing. Then again, maybe his imagination was running away with him. It was possible. Something about Liberty made him feel emotions he’d thought long dead. See possibilities rather than limitations.
“If you had said goodbye, I would have...”
“What, Liberty?” He leaned closer. Only an inch or two. Enough to drown in the vivid blue of her eyes.
“I don’t know. Gone to my mother. Pleaded on your behalf.”
“You didn’t?” Not that he’d expected that from anyone. After her claim that she’d believed in his innocence, however, he’d hoped she might have supported him.
“What was the point? You left.”
He withdrew his hand. “Let me get this straight. You didn’t defend me to your family because I didn’t say goodbye.”
“I was a kid.”
They both were. And in Deacon’s case, he’d been forced to grow up fast.
“I did not leave that gate open,” he repeated, “and I’m going to prove it.”
“How?”
Before he could go into detail, a large, shiny new pickup truck pulled up to the calf pens and braked to a stop. Deacon recognized the driver—Tom Pratt, professional cowboy and instructor for tonight’s roping clinic. The door flew open, and the man stepped out. He was here ahead of time to meet with Sunny and set up before the clinic started.
“Howdy,” he called, and ambled toward them.
“We’re not done talking about this, Deacon,” Liberty whispered before meeting her visitor halfway.
He didn’t think they were, either.
* * *
MORE THAN THREE DOZEN people had signed up for the roping clinic. A long night loomed ahead for all the Becketts. They’d be lucky to finish by ten, which meant Liberty wouldn’t get to bed until eleven, only to have her alarm go off at the crack of dawn.
She was helping Cassidy collect last-minute registrations and process paperwork. The task wasn’t consuming enough to take her mind off Deacon and their earlier conversation.
He wanted to clear his name. She sympathized with him, supported him, but what did that say about the two of them? Was there even a her and him to consider?
“Next,” Cassidy called through the window. “Hey there, Cal.” She beamed at the young cowboy.
It was nice to see her sister smile for a change. She’d been a grouch for days now. Unfortunately, Cassidy’s improved mood didn’t affect Liberty’s sour one.
They were in the registration booth beneath the announcer’s stand, which was just large enough to hold four warm bodies, a desk, chair and overhead cupboards stocked with supplies. There was also a safe tucked behind the desk, though money didn’t remain there for long. It was quickly transferred to a second safe inside the house.
The Becketts didn’t like thinking poorly of their customers or employees, but, sadly, thefts occurred on rare occasion, and they couldn’t be too careful.
During their annual rodeos, two horse auctions and various roping, bucking and team penning competitions, the computer was on and the laser printer constantly spewing pages. Not today and not for a simple clinic. There were no scores to tabulate, no bids to record and no times to track.
There wasn’t much paperwork to process, either. Before long, Liberty and her sister would be done. Then, the two of them would be on standby during the clinic, helping out in whatever capacity they were needed. Bringing fresh calves from the pens. Fetching equipment. Refilling the cooler with ice and water. Taking pictures, which would then be posted on their website to advertise the next clinic.
When it was over and the arena regraded in preparation for tomorrow’s activities, she’d be free to dwell on Deacon without any of those pesky interruptions.
Finally, the last participant left the registration booth with a “thank you, ma’am” and dashed off to saddle his horse before the clinic started.
Like a lot of the participants tonight, he was from the area and had high hopes of making rodeo his career. The remainder were roping enthusiasts who took their hobby seriously. Of those, a third were women, some of them as good as any man.
Tom Pratt’s voice blared from the arena loudspeakers, announcing the start of the clinic. He wore a wireless microphone headset that enabled him to instruct hands-free from either the ground or on horseback.
With the sound of Tom’s voice droning in the background, Liberty and Cassidy balanced the registration forms with the cash, checks and credit card receipts they’d collected. Fortunately, everything balanced to the penny on their first try.
Cassidy put the last of the money and receipts in a zippered bank bag. “Want me to run this to the house?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Liberty closed and locked the cash drawer.
“Okay, I’ll go. You can help with the calves.”
Liberty had forgotten that Walter was “showing Mercer the ropes” tonight. “I’d rather not, if that’s okay.”
“You’re not the only one who wants to avoid him.”
“Please.”
“Fine.” Cassidy thrust the bank bag at her. “I’ll help dear ol’ Dad.” The endearment wasn’t issued with affection.
Liberty pressed her fingers to her forehead and rubbed the ache lodged there. “Sorry. Something’s eating at me. Didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“News flash, little sis. We all have something eating at us.”
Liberty sighed miserably.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Eventually. I’d like to stew for a while first.”
Angry as she was at Mercer, she was like any child and wanted her parents together. If she was honest with herself, that was one of the reasons she’d invited him back. Her mother didn’t gaze longingly at the picture of them hidden in a drawer because she hated him.
“I saw you and Deacon this afternoon.” Cassidy’s expression softened. “It looked intense.”
“A little.”
“Am I right in assuming you two aren’t going out anytime soon?”
“We were never going out to begin with.”
“Then why are you always panting after him?”
“I do not pant!”
“Last month I saw you cover a hundred yards in ten seconds flat just to make sure he picked you for his team penning partner.”
Liberty gasped. “You’re making that up.”
“Right.” Cassidy had the nerve to laugh.
“Argh!” Because she didn’t want to engage in yet another childish bickering match with her sister, Liberty refrained from commenting—a feat that required cementing her teeth together
Had she really galloped her horse across the arena? Probably. Definitely. And no more!
“He sure has changed,” Cassidy observed. “Who’d have figured him for an attorney?”
“Why not an attorney? He’s smart.” Liberty’s defense of Deacon came out in a rush.
“I didn’t say he wasn’t.” Cassidy locked the booth door behind them.
“You implied it.”
“Look, he had trouble wi
th school. Failed most of his classes. Did you ever think he’d wind up with a law degree hanging on his wall? I sure didn’t.”
“I thought he’d be a champion bull rider.”
“There was that,” Cassidy said, her tone losing some of its bite.
Liberty’s opinion was once shared by many. Deacon had shown considerable promise as a young man. Bull riding. Bronc busting. Steer wrestling. He’d been an all-around cowboy and headed for a state junior rodeo title, along with Ernie Tuckerman. All that changed in the wake of the accident.
“I always wondered what happened to him after he ran away.” Cassidy dug the keys to the Gator out of her jeans pocket and tossed them to Liberty. They’d parked the vehicle on the other side of the booth. “Did he ever tell you?”
“Uh-uh.” Liberty climbed into the Gator’s driver’s side.
She’d hinted at the subject a few times, but Deacon remained steadfastly silent. How he had gone from a high school dropout runaway to an attorney must be an incredible story. She was more than curious. She was fascinated.
“Drop me off at the arena on your way to the house,” Cassidy instructed, and settled herself in the passenger seat.
Liberty tucked the bank bag in a cubby beneath the dash.
“He likes you.”
She sat up slowly. Mercer had said almost the exact same thing to her. “He likes a lot of people.”
“Not as much as he likes you.”
Her sister could be truly tiring at times. “Doesn’t make any difference.” Glancing backward, she threw the Gator into Reverse and pressed her foot to the gas pedal. “He’s Mercer’s attorney.”
“You should ask him out.”
“What! Me? No.”
“Think about it.” Cassidy held on to the grab bar as they bumped over a pothole. “You could pump him for information on Mercer.”
“He won’t tell me anything.”
“You don’t know till you try.”
“I know,” Liberty countered. “Deacon won’t betray his client’s trust. He’s...honorable.”
“He’s also a man and susceptible to a woman’s charms.”
“Forget it.” Liberty pulled up alongside the livestock pens. “I already know everything about Mercer’s intentions I need to.”
“Like what?”
“He still loves Mom.”
Cassidy’s double take was almost comical. “No way!”
Now that Liberty had let the cat out of the bag, she went with it. “He told me so himself. That’s why he came back. To reconcile with her.”
“Good Lord.” Cassidy slumped against the back of the seat. “What are we going to do?”
Liberty didn’t believe the next words out of her mouth. “I think we should help them along.”
“Help them?”
“Mom loves him, too.”
“She most certainly does not,” Cassidy insisted.
“It’s been twenty-four years since Mercer left and she’s gone on how many dates? Four or five by my count.”
“Big deal. I don’t date, either.”
“Why not?”
Liberty had often contemplated her sister’s single status. Benjy’s father, whoever he was, must have broken Cassidy’s heart. Liberty was the only Beckett woman who went out with any regularity, though seldom seriously. Most of her relationships ended after four to six months. Usually when she finally accepted the guy wasn’t the one.
Her mother called Liberty a dreamer and accused her of having too high expectations. Liberty couldn’t help herself. She wanted to be swept off her feet and fall madly in love.
“Don’t try and sidetrack me,” Cassidy said. “We’re talking about Mom and Mercer. Besides, you hate him.”
“I don’t. I’m angry at him and his...methods. But in his defense, Mom lied to him, too. He could have felt justified.”
“Mom had her reasons.”
“I want us to be a family again. At the least, I want to get to know my father.”
“He’s an alcoholic.”
“A former alcoholic. He only started drinking after our grandfather died.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No? Our parents are both alive. We don’t know how we’d change if one of them suddenly suffered a fatal heart attack. We might use alcohol as a crutch to cope with our grief.”
Cassidy grew quiet. “He was different before the drinking.”
“Kind of like he is now?”
“He had no right to speak to Benjy without talking to me first.”
“I don’t disagree.” Liberty lowered her voice. “But he wanted to meet his grandson. Is that a crime?”
“He’s pushy.”
She could think of a few more colorful adjectives to describe him. Had called Mercer one or two to his face. She could also see his good side. He was charming and witty and a skilled livestock foreman. Liberty had heard many stories about him from the old-timers who hung out at the arena during the rodeos and horse sales. Before the drinking started, he’d been well liked, respected, generous to those he called friends and a devoted husband and father.
“There’s a reason our brother chose to live with him,” Liberty said firmly.
“He wasn’t riding in the truck when Mercer crashed into the well house.”
“If Mom and Mercer reconcile, Ryder might come visit us.” Liberty had missed growing up with her brother.
“That’s the only good thing about Mercer returning.”
“Mom deserves to be happy. They both deserve a second chance if that’s what they want. We should remain open to possibilities.”
“Not me.”
If that was true, then why hadn’t Cassidy gotten out of the Gator?
“You had the chance to grow up with him. For a while. I was denied that.”
“He could cost us our business.”
“The arena is half his. He won’t do anything to sabotage it.”
“Because he wants his money.”
“Because he wants our mother.”
Liberty had grown weary of their constant back and forth and decided to end it. “Think about it, please. I’ll see you later.”
Again, Cassidy didn’t move. “What were you and Deacon talking about earlier?”
Hadn’t they also exhausted the topic of her and Deacon? Apparently not. “Horse boarding,” Liberty said. “The bucking stock operation.”
“And that got heated?”
“It wasn’t heated.”
“Now who’s making up stories?”
“He irritates me sometimes.”
“I bet.” Cassidy laughed.
“It’s not what you think. He isn’t interested in me. The conversation was intense because Deacon’s an intense guy.”
“Would you look at that!”
Cassidy’s explosive remark had Liberty popping off the seat and searching for a snake or spider. “What?” she asked, finding nothing.
“Over there.” Cassidy jabbed her finger at the south gate.
And there was the source of her sister’s distress. Mercer and their mother stood together. Close together, their heads bent over something too small for Liberty to see. “So what? They’re talking.”
“Talking, my ass.” Cassidy piled out of the Gator and stormed off.
No doubt about it. Her sister was definitely not open to possibilities.
The drive to the house took only a few minutes, as did placing the bank bag inside the safe. Before long, Liberty was returning to the arena. By then, the roping clinic was well under way. She stopped a moment to watch Tom Pratt demonstrate a new technique.
He stood, twirling a rope high over his head, then tossed it at a practice dummy. A whizzing sound cut the air as the rop
e flew. Ten, twenty, thirty feet. It landed squarely on the plastic calf head with a solid thwack.
He pulled the rope taut as if the dummy were a real calf. “The trick is to shift your balance at just the right moment.” He leaned to one side and patted his thigh.
“Easy for you,” a middle-aged man said from the sidelines.
Tom chuckled good-naturedly and motioned to the man. “Come on. You try.”
The man jogged over, and the lesson resumed. Liberty glanced about. Her parents were with Walter at the livestock pens behind the chutes. Cassidy was up in the announcer’s booth, probably avoiding Mercer. Liberty decided she’d have a chat with Kenny, the teenager who’d graded the arena while she and Deacon were talking this afternoon.
One conversation led to another, one task became many. Before she quite realized it, three hours had passed and the roping clinic was nearing an end. The spectators in the bleacher were up and on their feet, stretching or repacking their coolers.
Liberty started for the arena gate, intending to open it. She paid no attention to the sound of a nearby vehicle, assuming someone had arrived to pick up a participant.
Wrong.
The sight of Deacon’s pickup gave her a start. No, more like a thrill. He hadn’t mentioned anything about returning tonight. Especially so late. Yet, here he was.
She waited for him to park and exit his truck. He headed straight for her. The thrill intensified.
“You’re late,” she said. “The clinic’s over.”
“You have a few minutes to talk?” He looked so serious.
“About what?”
He stopped directly in front of her. She had to lift her chin several inches to meet his gaze. The view along the way wasn’t bad. He had a nice chest to go with his broad shoulders. She’d noticed that before—frequently.
“You. Me. Your father,” he said.
“Aren’t there some sort of attorney-client privileges you’re not supposed to violate?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not that kind of conversation.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Not here.” He took her by the arm and guided her across the open area to the picnic table outside the office.
Liberty swore every pair of eyes in the place tracked their progress. She could only imagine what her mother and sister would say when they heard. Nothing she wasn’t already telling herself.
More Than a Cowboy (Reckless, Arizona) Page 7
