Claire made a small, irritated noise, but her voice was butter-smooth. “I wanted to see for myself how you’re holding up. You’ve always been so protective of your privacy, and now your father’s impetuous announcement has stirred up all this attention, just when you were finally moving past your grief.”
Wow. Motherly concern wrapped around a slick jab at her father. Tori was tempted to do a slow clap. “He doesn’t see it that way.”
“It’s been a difficult term, with all the infighting.” Her sigh was artfully sympathetic, with a touch of exasperation. Those damn politicians. “Richard is the man they count on to pull them together. He’s exhausted and disillusioned, but he is exactly what this country needs.”
“What about what he needs?”
In the beat of silence, Tori could feel the force of her mother’s will even from a distance, attempting to rearrange her very molecules. “Your father has always understood that sacrifices are necessary for the greater good.”
Unlike Tori. She felt the heat gathering in her gut, but kept her voice cool. “He has sacrificed his entire adult life. I think he’s paid his dues.”
“You would.” For an instant, the shell cracked, and anger leached out. “He seems determined to follow your example. Become a normal guy. Toss all of his potential aside for love, since it’s brought such joy into your life.”
Tori’s hand jerked up, physically lashing out in return. She closed her fingers into a fist, and dropped it to her side. Her mother had lost her iron control. And that meant Tori was winning. As the wave of blind fury ebbed, it was replaced by a backwash of pity. Poor Claire. Her logical, calculated world had dissolved into a churning sea of emotion—and she didn’t have the first clue how to swim.
“Be reasonable, Mother,” Tori said, turning Claire’s favorite weapon on her. “If you have to resort to asking me for help, you’ve already lost.”
Her voice went icy. “I will not stand back—”
“You have no choice. The White House is already off the table.”
“People have short memories, Victoria, especially in Texas. If we give this the right spin, present a united family front…”
Oh, they were united, just not in the way their mother wanted.
Tori gentled her voice, adding a note of conciliation. “His mind is made up. I couldn’t change it if I tried. Let him go, while there’s a chance we can still be a family once this has all blown over.”
Tori held her breath. In the extended silence, she could practically hear the keys clicking as Claire entered the information into her brain and crunched the data. Would she take Elizabeth’s bait?
“I will do whatever is best for the family, of course.” Claire’s voice was stiff with offended dignity. “I had hoped you would do the same.”
“This is my best, Mother.”
“Nonsense. You are capable of so much more—”
“I’m doing work that is important to me, and to my patients. Someday, I hope you’ll be able to accept that as enough. Until then, I suggest you stop wasting your time and influence by calling in favors from people who have much better things to do than make me offers I won’t accept.”
Once again, her mother began to speak, then stopped. Even Claire didn’t have an unlimited supply of influence. To waste it was impractical. Finally, she gave an embattled sigh. “If you’re certain.”
“I am.”
“But if you change your mind,” she couldn’t help adding. “Find yourself in need of a challenge…”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Tori promised. And said good-bye while she momentarily had the upper hand.
Chapter 29
Monday morning, Delon sat on a treatment table while Beni spun in circles on a stool, waiting for Tori. She walked in carrying a sheaf of papers and what looked like a wrist brace. Their eyes caught, and for a moment that kiss at the shop shimmered in the air between them. Then she glanced away.
“How was your weekend?” she asked.
“Uncle Gil said he’s gonna have to beat the dispatch stuff into Daddy’s head with a keyboard,” Beni chirped. “Then Daddy said—”
“You weren’t supposed to be listening,” Delon cut in, before Beni could repeat his response word for word. Note to self—noise-canceling headphones are not foolproof. Delon gave Tori a wry smile. “My brother is not the soul of patience.”
“Consider me shocked,” she drawled.
Delon laughed. “How about you? Good weekend?”
“Had a visit with my mother. Won third at a roping in Lubbock with Shawnee. And there’s now a Facebook page called Keeping Up with the Pattersons, in case you’d like to know what brand of tampons I prefer.”
His face went hot. “I…uh…”
“What are tampons?” Beni asked.
“Girl stuff.” The corner of Tori’s mouth curled, sharp as a fish hook. “Ask your mother. In the meantime…ready to get started?”
“Yes!” Beni bumped a grubby fist against the one she held out.
Honestly. It was like dirt jumped up and followed the kid. Delon could’ve sworn he’d been clean when they left the house. And he was still flummoxed at how effortlessly Tori managed his child. More than just being comfortable with kids, the two of them seemed to be on the same wavelength, the way she anticipated every duck and dodge of that cunning little mind.
“The first thing you need is this, Coach.” The devil danced in Tori’s eyes as she pulled out a whistle and slipped the lanyard over Beni’s head. It was heavy duty, real metal, the official kind used by referees and lifeguards.
Delon’s ears wept at the sight of it. “You are a cruel woman.”
“Who? Me?” She pressed a hand to her chest with a smile that sparkled with mischief. He blinked. The light was back, and he couldn’t say whether it had flipped on all at once or slowly brightened like the sky before sunrise. Not her old, superficial gloss—this glow seemed to emanate from her soul. God, what he’d give to warm up next to that fire. Or jump right in.
She handed him the top two sheets of paper. “Look at these.”
He did. One was a photocopy of the first page of an article from something called the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The title was an indecipherable string of words like immunostimulatory and allogeneic, dry enough to make his fingertips crack where they touched the paper. He switched to the second sheet. The words were hand-written in purple calligraphy on cream-colored parchment. The title was “Lost,” and the language was so flowery and convoluted he had no more idea what it meant than the journal article.
A headache began to brew behind his eyes. Was this another test? If so, he was going to fail miserably. Again. He let a small, defeated sigh slip.
“Yeah,” Tori said. “I don’t have a clue what they mean, either.”
He lowered the papers. “So your point is?”
“My sister wrote both of them. The first is one of her research papers. The second is a poem she sent me after Willy died.”
Delon looked from one page to the other again, then back at Tori. “Really?”
“Yes. And this is the good part.” Tori took the papers and held them side-by-side for comparison. “She can’t write poetry on a computer. She uses them constantly at work, and she says the minute her fingers touch the keyboard those are the only kinds of words she has. But if she picks up a pen and writes in calligraphy, her mind automatically switches gears and she gets poetry.”
Interesting. Sort of. But he still didn’t understand…
“Think about it. She makes a physical change, and it causes a mental shift.” Tori waved the papers in front of him. “This is what we’re going to do with you. By forcing you to use your left hand for all of your daily activities, I’m hoping to flip that switch in your brain. Turn off your old mechanics and turn on the new.”
“Cool,” Beni said. And damned if he did
n’t look like he knew exactly what she meant.
Delon gave her a dubious look. “You honestly think this will work?”
She folded her arms, so determined it was a tiny bit scary, like his knee had become one of those hurdles in her path and she was gonna get over it come hell or high water…and drag him along by the collar if necessary. “We proved you’re physically capable. We just have to teach you to do it consistently—on a real live bucking horse.”
* * *
“What the hell is that?” Gil demanded when Delon walked into the dispatcher’s office.
He resisted the urge to hide his right arm behind his back. “Part of Tori’s new plan.”
“She’s gonna fix your knee by making it so you can’t wipe your ass?”
“Something like that.” He joined Gil in frowning at the brace that curved all the way up the palm and fingers of his hand, leaving only his thumb free. “She’s got this theory about how if we rewire my brain by forcing me to do everything left-handed, I’ll ride better with my right. She says it’ll change my center of balance.”
Gil went still for a beat, then slouched back in his chair. “You’re gonna try switching hands.”
“Yeah.” Delon made sure his voice was equally nonchalant. “I could use some help, if you’re interested.” If you don’t still hate that I can do this and you can’t.
Gil took a long, deep breath and let it stream out slowly. “Look, D, it was never about you specifically. For a couple of years I hated anyone who could walk without a limp. But what I’ve really hated is watching you treat this thing like a nine-to-five job. Show up, put in your time, settle for whatever they decide to pay you.”
“But I did get paid,” Delon flashed back. “More often than any other bareback rider over the past five years, even if it wasn’t the big check. I can live with that. I’m not like you.”
“You’re better.” Gil jacked forward in his chair, his expression fierce. “That’s what really pisses me off. You’re so goddamn talented and you don’t have a clue.”
Delon gaped at him, stunned. “You’re the one who racked up the arena records.”
“Or got thrown on my head.” Gil flicked a dismissive hand. “You’re stronger. Faster. And so fucking controlled. If we could morph the two of us together, we’d have Kaycee Feild’s bastard brother.”
Kaycee, who had dominated bareback riding for years. And the best of Delon and Gil, mashed together, equaled the new style Tori had created.
Gil’s expression didn’t change as he leafed through the pages of exercises Tori had printed out, but Delon could feel the energy beginning to build around him. “This could be brilliant.”
“Or a total waste of time.”
“So what if it is? You got something better to do?” Gil gave him a heavy-lidded stare. “Rodeo is a fickle, jealous bitch. If you want a gold buckle, you gotta give her your whole heart, even though you know she’ll stomp on it more days than not.”
And Delon was asking to be destroyed twice over, putting his personal and professional future in the hands of a woman who had said outright she didn’t want to be here, and hadn’t so much as knocked down the weeds around that crappy little house of hers. What was to stop her from disappearing again, especially now that the press was gnawing over every detail of her life like a pack of starving coyotes?
“Well?” Gil asked. “You up for it, or not?”
Delon shook his head slowly. “I’ll give it a shot, but realistically—”
“Fuck reality,” Gil snarled. “That’s what’s left when you’ve used up all your dreams.”
Or chased them so hard you crashed and burned. Delon couldn’t take that risk. He’d do everything exactly as Tori instructed. He’d even follow Gil’s lead—up to a point. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—throw all caution to the wind.
Screw that little voice saying he couldn’t ride a bucking horse with one foot on the ground.
The computer monitor behind Gil lit up with three consecutive messages from drivers. One was stuck in LaGrande, Oregon, because Deadman Pass had just been closed due to a winter storm. Another was nine hours late getting loaded out of Tulsa. The third was hunkered in a motel in El Paso, sure he’d contracted food poisoning from the shithole cafe where he’d had dinner the night before.
Gil gave Delon’s wrist brace the stink eye. “Can you type while you’re wearing that thing?”
“I can’t type when I’m not.”
“Good point. I’ll put out the fires.” Gil shoved the second keyboard toward him. “Check the status on the rest of the loads we’ve got moving. Use your dick if you have to. It’s probably faster than those other ten peckers of yours.”
The main office door banged open, followed by the long, air-shredding blast of a whistle.
“What the hell?” Gil demanded, whirling around.
Beni bounded through the door, grinning. “I’m Daddy’s coach. Tori said I gotta have a real coach’s whistle.”
Gil turned his glare on Delon, who shrugged.
“Figures,” Gil said sourly, spinning to face his keyboard. “Just when you start to trust a woman.”
Chapter 30
On the afternoon of February 14th, Delon stood in the Super Shopper store in Dumas and stared down an entire aisle stacked with boxes and bows in every possible shade of red and pink. He’d tried to hustle Beni past, but the kid had locked up his brakes.
“You always buy Mommy a valentine,” Beni insisted.
“I know, but…” What? She’s on a diet? She developed a sudden allergy to chocolate? She’s sleeping with Joe now, so it’s his job to buy her a cheesy cardboard heart? “You know, Beni, now that you’re six years old, I think you should give Mommy her valentine.”
Beni paused to consider, eyes narrowing in a way that indicated deep thought or plans for large-scale destruction. “Do I have to pay for it out of my allowance?”
“Nah. I’ll front you the money.”
Beni’s face cleared. “Cool.”
He scampered down the aisle, dodging shoppers. It was a measure of how much Delon’s knee had improved that he could keep up. In the past two weeks he’d done everything Tori had asked and then some, thanks to Beni and Gil throwing everything from Frisbees to medicine balls at him to improve his left-handed coordination. Even his dad had joined in, showing up last Sunday morning with a pair of left-handed clubs and dragging Gil, Delon, and Beni out for a round of golf. Merle played surprisingly well. Gil played as if the ball had insulted his manhood. Beni claimed he beat Delon by three strokes, but for a kid who was a whiz at math, the numbers on his scorecard didn’t quite add up.
“This one!” he declared, standing on tiptoe to fetch down a god-awful neon pink and gold heart.
“Wow. That’s really…big.”
“And it’s bee-oo-tiful.” Beni clutched his prize and tromped back to their shopping cart.
Delon hesitated, then grabbed another—left-handed because, yes, he was still stuck in the damn brace—just to see Tori’s face when he gave it to her.
“Who’s that for?” Beni demanded, when Delon dropped the second box in the cart.
“Miz Tori. For helping me get better.”
Beni hopped up to hang on the side of the cart as a man squeezed past, loaded down with enough valentines for an entire office staff, or a whole passel of special someones. “Do you sleep at her house now?”
Delon choked, coughed, and fielded a raised eyebrow from the guy with the armload of chocolate. Like he had any room to talk. “No. Why would I?”
“You don’t sleep at Mommy’s house anymore. And I saw you kissing Miz Tori.”
Damn. He should have known Beni would spy on them. “I only stayed at Mommy’s house when I got in late from rodeos and wanted to see you first thing in the morning, or if I had to drop you off then leave real early the next day. Now
I’m not traveling, so I don’t need to sleep over.”
“And you don’t want to sleep over at Tori’s house, either?” Beni persisted.
Oh yeah. He definitely wanted. It was pathetic how much he looked forward to their weekly appointments. The way his heart skipped when she called with her latest tweak to his program or to share some research she’d dug up. How he craved her smile, her approval, the too-brief, too-professional touch of her hands.
“Tori and I are friends,” he said.
“Regular friends, or friends with benefits?” Beni asked.
Delon choked on his own spit again. “What do you know about benefits?”
“My friend Avonlea says that’s what babies are made of, and you and Mommy used to have benefits but now you don’t ’cuz she’s friends with Joe instead of you. Are they going to make a baby?”
So many questions and not one single coherent answer to be found. Delon could feel the sweat springing up in his armpits. Where did he start? Nowhere near that part about Violet and Joe and babies, that’s for damn sure.
“Mommy and I are still friends.” Sort of.
Beni fingered the neon pink bow on the box of candy, his expression uncharacteristically somber. “Avonlea said her mommy says I was a mistake.”
Double damn. Call him selfish, but Delon had always hoped Violet would be the one who got stuck with this conversation. He crouched and put his hands on Beni’s shoulders, so they were eye to eye.
“You were a surprise, that’s for sure. The best surprise in the whole world.” After the panic wore off, and Delon had been sure Steve Jacobs wasn’t going to haul him down to the corral and castrate him like a fence-jumping bull. He squeezed Beni’s shoulders. “And you know what? Uncle Gil and I were surprises, too. And your cousin Quint. So you’re just like all of the Sanchez men.”
Beni puffed up a little at being called a man. “Really?”
“Yep.”
Beni cocked his head and thought about it for a minute. “That’s cool.”
Then he scampered off to check out a purple teddy bear with a red heart that lit up when you squeezed its paw. Delon dragged Beni away as it warbled You light up my life, insisting that no, Grandma Iris would not love to have one for Beni to squeeze over and over and over until Cole ripped its head off. They got in line at the checkstand, an elderly couple in front of them, a trio of slouchy teenagers behind, and a prune-faced checker who, as far as Delon could remember, had been installed right along with the register when the store was built.
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