“Yeah, but your whole body turned tight.”
Briar felt it then, and she took a deep breath and blew it all out, trying to send the tension with it. It worked a little bit, and she relaxed back into his chest, where she hoped she could find true rest tonight.
“My parents had huge expectations for me,” she said. “They were both rodeo celebrities in Calgary, and my daddy still calls at the Stampede. Did you ever ride there?”
“Yeah, sure,” Tarr said. “I didn’t know any Prescotts, though.”
Briar swallowed the lump in her throat, but the words wouldn’t go with it. “That’s because his name is Alvin Perry.”
Tarr pulled in a sharp breath. “Oh…I know Alvin Perry.”
“He’s my daddy,” Briar said. “I changed my name when I came to the US and became a citizen here.”
“You did? Why?”
Briar exhaled again, but this time none of the tension left with the air. She kept her eyes closed, but the scent of Tarr’s skin, his clothes, his cologne stuck in her nose. “So that they couldn’t find me,” she said. “He’s big in the rodeo, and my momma was a championship barrel racer and stunt rider to boot.”
“Yeah,” Tarr said slowly. “What was her name again?”
He paused for a moment, and then they said together, “Regina.”
“That’s right,” Tarr added. “I feel like I met her a few times.”
“I’m sure you did,” Briar said. “They used to host a dinner for the elite champions before the Stampede. They even did it after they got divorced.”
“Yeah,” Tarr said. “Though I think they’d stopped by the time I could have been invited.”
“It’s been about ten years.” She tried to keep the memories at bay, but it took so much energy—energy Briar didn’t currently have.
“Yeah, so just before my time,” Tarr said. “But I think they were at a gala or something the last year I rode in the rodeo.”
“Sounds like them.” Briar didn’t hate her parents. She simply didn’t understand them.
“I just have to know,” Tarr said. “Did you ride in the rodeo, honey?”
“No,” she said.
“Then why do you hate it so much?”
Briar sighed, because the answer to that question couldn’t be summed up with one sentence. It was like a thirty-sided die that, no matter how she rolled, a reason would come up for why she disliked the rodeo and the atmosphere surrounding it.
“There are a lot of reasons,” she said. “Some of them small and some of them big. One of them has to do with the fact that every cowboy I dated came from the rodeo, and they all treated me badly. They all abandoned me when I got hurt, and they all took my parents’ side when I desperately needed someone to be on mine.”
Tarr let a few seconds go by, and then he said, “I’m real sorry about that, Briar.”
He didn’t press her to know more about how she’d gotten hurt, and when he breathed in deeply, so did she. She matched his slow, even exhale and whispered, “I like you, Tarr. Thanks for always being there,” before she finally succumbed to her exhaustion, and fell asleep.
nine
Tarr woke when a blast of cold air slapped him across the face, there one moment and then gone with the snick of the front door closing. The warmth from the fire absorbed the chill quickly, and it caused a small smile to permeate his soul.
He’d gotten up twice in the night to rebuild and stoke the fire, and each time he’d eased back into bed and taken Briar right back into his arms without waking her. She wasn’t there now, though, and he suspected she’d gotten up and gone to sit on the front porch.
She was definitely more of an early bird than he was. He liked to stay up late and sleep in, but he’d been here enough over the last few months to know that Briar got up early and took her coffee on the front porch while Wiggins ran around the yard.
Then she started her day over at the farm, usually helping Bobbie Jo with the goats and lambs and doing her rounds with the animals to check on their health and well-being. She’d chat with Tucker about the veterinary needs of the animals, and she usually disappeared into a tiny office in the rodeo barn just after lunch.
Tarr’s Texas bones still felt chilled, and he tucked the blankets in all around him and stayed in bed for a little longer. He dozed, sleeping on and off, finally getting up when his need to use the bathroom and his desire for hot coffee couldn’t be ignored any longer.
